Our Sixties House

End Credits

2012-01-14T07:24:00.000-08:00

Five Estate Agent Valuers
Online Estate Agent
Vendor's Estate Agent
Solicitor x 2
Surveyor x 2
Nice Lady at the Bank
Electrical Survey Man
Damp Proofers
Removal Men
Steven and his marvellous plumbing
Achitect
Structural Engineer
Building Control Man
United Utilites
Mole Engineering
British Gas
Emergency Gas Repair Man
Local Planning Department
Friendly Councillor
Nine building firms
Carl the Builder
Brick Matching Man
Mike the Site Manager
Matt the Spark and friends
Several plumbers
Several Roofers
Mike the Goundsman (and his digger)
Tate and Danny the Brickies
John Lewis flooring department
Smithfield Kitchens
Smarts Bathrooms
CTC tiles
Steve the Carpet Man
Mr Garlick the fireplace man
Plasterers (and their wives everwhere...)
Linda the Curtain lady
Eddie the joiner
Will and Liam the joiners
Terry the Driveway man
Two garage door salesman
Online ordering
Bombay Sapphire

The End

Before and After...

2012-01-14T06:27:00.000-08:00

It's almost 12 months since we completed the sale on our house and we're finally able to look at the 'before and after' of our renovation.

When we told our friends we were buying number 2, they literally laughed at us for taking it on. 'It's awful!' they said. 'You must be mad.' Dr B's parents drove to see and couldn't find the words to describe how they felt about it. 'What are you doing?' we were asked. There had been 'many' viewings according to the man who showed us around. 'But it needs so much work....'

We could see the potential, and crucially, it was on the market for less than we thought it was really worth. We even managed to negotiate a substantial discount on the asking price, though in reality we'd have paid the asking price if necessary because it had such a lot of scope, hope of a great family home.

But all the same I cried when we moved in - the house was in such poor shape - during the first few weeks we lived here, the corpses of dead wasps filled the bath whenever we ran the hot tap. The gas board were called to investigate the persasive smell of gas in the garage, which unsurprisingly turned out to be a leak. Pressure washing the patio caused it to disintegrate due to lack of foundations, the toilet began to fail, the front door jammed, the electrics started to buzz.

Twelve months later, the house is transformed; three bedrooms turned into five. The garage and utility room were demolished, replaced by a larger garage and updated utility with masses of storage. The sliding garage doors were replaced with remote controlled sectional ones. The dining room had it's glass wall and hatch bricked up to become a study and we built a playroom. The kitchen came out five times the size of the original. We replaced the windows and ripped out the fireplace.

Upstairs the grotty floral bathroom was ripped out and the space became a galleried landing. Two new bathrooms were created, each twice as big as the original. Walls came down, doors were moved. Even the bannister was replaced. The house was rewired, replastered and had a new boiler and central heating.

Outside, we replaced the roof, rebuilt the porch and pulled down the cedar cladding and original render to replace it with new. We dug up the shoddy patio, replacing it with granite and widening it in the process. We widened the crumbling drive and replaced it with cobbled setts.

The house is absolutely beautiful - Christmas cards from the neighbours all along the road testament that our hard work paid off; other residents stopping us as they pass to compliment us on the build. The old house was an eyesore, they say - a wreck. "It brought down the area" said one neighbour. "you've had your work cut out."

I'm never renovating another house, by the way. We're here for good now.

Nearly....

2011-12-12T14:23:00.000-08:00

It's been a while since I posted any progress on the blog; I've been too busy stressing out about the fitting of the bathrooms and finishing the small bits of the job before the carpets arrived.

Terry the driveway has almost finished - a few days late since some terrible weather consisting of hailstones, thunder, rain and rainbows and not much else in between, and yet despite this he's soldiered on with his hood up and his flask of tea. The results are one wonderful patio and gorgeous driveway. A man who walks his dog stopped me on the pavement today and told me our house is 'the best renovation we've ever seen on the estate.' Another man touched me on the arm last week and complimented me on a 'beautiful job.' I'm so proud of what we've managed to achieve with this ugly old wreck that nobody wanted to buy.

I'm happy to report that the tiler finally 'finished the job', though as I remarked previously, he was spinning too many plates and made some mistakes around the shower area in our ensuite, which led to our beautiful Matki shower valve being fixed to the wall with white silicone when it ought not to be - the plumber was trying to cover for the tiler's mistake but my eyes don't miss much and unfortunately for him I spotted the mistake immediately (as well as several of his other mistakes like radiators that didn't actually warm up). Fortunately he returned to fix the radiators two hours before the carpet fitters arrived because his 'fixing' involved messing up our paint by spraying yellow and brown liquid over the walls and skirting boards and creating little puddles on the floor. It was purely by co-incidence that he came and that the carpet fitters were 3 hours late. Anyway, the mosaic tiles look lovely (see the picture) and I'm just waiting for somebody to fix the shower door he's botched and we've got yet more bathroom tiles on order from Spain.

By the time the plumber left I was ready to chuck everyone out of the house. Never mind that Matt the spark hadn't told us how the underfloor heating works (he'll be back...) or that the washing machine isn't plumbed in. By Saturday evening I'd reclaimed the keys and by Sunday I'd lifted all that cardboard and chipboard that was protecting the floors and seen how great the Amtico looked. We've a few more jobs to do. We're exhausted. The house is truly fantastic.

Go Slow

2011-12-04T11:56:00.000-08:00

This is pretty much the face I've been seeing in the mirror since Friday. Having miscalculated the number of tiles we needed for both bathrooms, our tiler has been struck down with some little-known 'slowing down' disease which has left him unable to finish our job. I like him a lot, but he's spinning too many plates and it's beginning to stress me out. The extra tiles for the en-suite had to come from Spain and we'd been making frantic calls about them all week. On Friday morning they were on a ferry but still managed to arrive in Altrincham by tea time, which left Dr B scooting over there to retrieve them in time for the tiler to finish the job this weekend.

Except our tiler had other ideas because the uncertainty over our tiles arriving (which would have been here on time if he'd calculated them right) meant he'd been promised on another job for Saturday, though as our project manager told us, all was not lost because he was coming to finish the en-suite on Sunday and 'wouldn't be leaving until the job was finished.'

On Saturday night I found him at the said 'other job' where I handed him the keys and he confirmed he was due on site in the morning but that he'd only be staying until 6pm because he had to go and screed somebody's floor. The latter comment led to two large gins and a lie down because by now I'm just a teeny bit stressed about the carpets arriving on Friday next week and 'leaving when it's finished' was starting to sound like a bit of a fib designed to keep me sweet. He could tell I wasn't happy because he used the line he always uses when I don't look happy, the line that goes 'we'll have a good day at it tomorrow.' He's promised several 'good days at it' in the last few weeks but none of these 'good days' has finished any of the work off.

This morning I arrived on site to finish some bits of painting that have been hanging over - patches of walls where the plaster hadn't dried in time; a bedroom wall that needed a third coat. It was 10am when I arrived and the tiler had just started work, only he hadn't started work because he'd forgotten to bring any tile spacers to work, which is a bit like turning up at work without your actual head if you're a tiler, so he'd sent his son off to get some and he was having a brew and a fag instead, complaining that somebody had made off with the plywood he'd ordered to tile our mosaic splashback. I suggested he would have to get some more plywood if he was going to finish the mosiacs but I'm not sure he heard me because no plywood was sent for and in the time it took his son to get back with the tile spacers I'd managed to touch up two rooms and wash the brushes.

By 11.30 still no work had been done and his son got back with the tile spacers, at which point I heard him complain that he'd been on site for two hours without doing any work. And then it was time for a fag break.

As soon as work commenced, there was a problem with the spacing of the aluminium brackets holding up the quartz. I didn't understand the logistics (or the measurements) because this was a part of the project that Dr B had been involved in and Dr B was incommunicado because I'd despatched him to the local swimming pool with the children so I could get on with painting some walls.

So Dr B was duly bleeped and turned up with two wet-haired children at lunchtime, at which point we swapped cars and I drove the children home while he worked out what the problem with the brackets was (later reported as 'nothing') and went off to get some plywood so the tiler could get on with the mosaics. By two o'clock he was back home reporting that the room seemed mainly finished with just the floor and mosaics to do - the tiler would drop the keys off to us around 7pm and the job would be ready for the plumbers to finish tomorrow.

The keys were dropped at 7pm as arranged. Our tiler had that look on his face that said he hadn't finished the job (I have come to recognise this face because he's pulled the same one every time he's promised to 'have it finished by the end of the day' and he's been on the job for about 3 weeks now). 'We've not had a good day,' he said as he stood in the porch. I can't honestly tell you why they hadn't had a good day because I couldn't hear a word he was saying with all the shouting and swearing going on in my head, much of which ended with 'sake'. Suffice too say, they yet again haven't managed to get the job finished. He looks almost as stressed as I do. I'm not totally confident I don't need to look for somebody who can 'stay until it's finished.'

Stoned

2011-12-02T11:43:00.000-08:00

Today is the fifth day we've had the pavers on site and in that time, they've dug the site out, stoned it up and begun laying the patio. Looks remarkably like the patio we had in our last house only the Marshall's flags we had there were roughly twice the price of this stuff, which is actually granite - we couldn't believe this stuff was cheaper.

The builders have been back today, though I'm reluctant to give them the keys that John Lewis have handed in as I'm getting tired of the place being a building site and having the keys does give you some sort of control. I'll have to hand them back on Monday but until then it feels like our house again.

Yesterday they got some scaffolding up the side of the house to replace the barge boards and chimney cowl as well as repointing the chimney stack.

Carpets go in a week today. Two weeks today, we'll be home. To our lovely new home.

Floored

2011-12-02T11:37:00.000-08:00

It's taken five days, but handing our keys over to John Lewis has produced this lovely Amtico floor and we're really chuffed with it. It's called 'Fresh Oak' and all I want to do is look at it. The flooring runs into the utility room and hallway and is now covered with layers and layers of cardboard, sponge and plywood to prevent it being damaged by the workies, who seem to breathe dust and rubble of the sort it's not designed to handle.

Funny - the minute you install a floor, it all starts to come together.

Rip it Up

2011-11-28T12:36:00.000-08:00

We've reached the much-anticipated November 28th - I say 'anticipated' because it's now week 16 and we expected the house to be finished and ready for flooring. The house isn't finished but John Lewis are doing the flooring and the date couldn't be altered, so today we put the house on lock down for a week and gave them the site managers' keys. Last night I dreamt they sent three fitters who all lit cigarettes in my house and blew the smoke into my face. I'm clearly living on the edge.

We're laying Amtico flooring downstairs and because the foundations are new, most of the floor has to be damp-proofed and re-screeded with a self-levelling compound before they can lay the planks. New concrete dries at a rate of about an inch a month, which means we have only four inches of dry concrete under the kitchen (if you think that's bad, go visit the Hoover Dam - it's still not quite set in the middle after all these decades). The damp-proofing adds £1,000 to the cost of the work but the alternative is to wait for the concrete to dry and there's no way I can live without a floor for that length of time.

I sort of dreaded this happening before the house was finished because it means you can't walk on the floors - trades can't come in to do their jobs, and neither can we. More to the point, the floor costs an arm and a leg. It's not designed for muddy boots or scratchy equipment. The man from John Lewis says we have to cover it up, good style.

We are now fully painted, with the exception of one window reveal (which has been repeatedly overlooked) and the glossing in the master bedroom, which is also inexplicably missing. We have no internal doors (well, we do have internal doors, they are just lying on the floor in packets) and though the glass hob has been replaced, it's been fitted in such a way that we can no longer close the top pan drawer. Each solution seems to bring a new problem.

The family bathroom has now been plumbed in, in fact the bath has been full of water since last Friday, which we think is designed to make the bath heavier and hence the sealant set firmer but we don't really know since the plumbers didn't mention it before they left. The ensuite is incomplete after the tiler once again miscalculated the number of tiles required (we need 32 extra....). We're really hoping the tiles turn up this week, but as they're coming from Spain, it's not as though we can go and get them ourselves.

The Tyrolean render is complete and looks amazing. One of the broken windows for the porch has now been replaced but not the other. The bricks on the porch have come loose, the chimney needs pointing, the cowl replacing. The drains need connecting.

Today our patio and driveway people turned up to rip the ground apart, which is a joy to watch because the previous owner had a thin layer of tarmac poured over the top of her concrete drive and it broke up into grit which was then constantly trod into the house. The back of the property is causing a headache because it slopes upwards and westwards, which requires some sort of retaining wall to stop it all collapsing onto the new patio. Who will build the wall? What will it be made of? The house bricks aren't designed for that job. Terry the patio man doesn't know - he does patios and drives. I hope he does them well because I've been looking forward to this part of the job since we first bought the house. Watch this space.

Granite

2011-11-22T13:03:00.000-08:00

The granite worktops were fitted last Friday. It's called 'Bianco Sardo' and the main thing about it is that it's not black. The man who fitted the granite said it's not a popular choice of colour because 'people are boring - they prefer black.' We had black granite in our last house and it drove me round the bend trying to get rid of the streaks. I'd like to bet that these people choosing black granite haven't tried to keep the bloody thing clean and do any actual cooking.

You'll see there's no cooking hob yet. We do have one, but it's sitting on the floor in a box because somewhere along the way it's been smashed and it's taped up and waiting to go back to the shop. We also have a huge breakfast bar, which is designed so I can seat the children without resorting to plastic table cloths for my nice table. I'm tired of sharing my dinner with seven shades of glitter and smears of mashed potato. Children are dirty little buggers. On reflection, I might just put a lock on the door.

Itchy

2011-11-22T12:25:00.000-08:00

Another week, another 'scratch coat' for the rendered elevation. The house must be itchy as hell judging by the amount of scratching that's gone on in the last two weeks. Just as I think it's getting it's tyrolean finish, the plasterers bugger off.

We were away at the weekend - friend's 40th birthday - an unavoidable absence but one which led to all manner of small disasters such as the tiler setting off the burglar alarm early in the morning (a 'man' disaster - 'man made,' in this case by the man who fitted the alarm and decided to drop by and randomly set it while we were away. Dr B knew he'd set it but didn't bat an eyelid when I warned him somebody would set it off. That's man disasters for you).

The oak frame was finally fitted into the porch, but not before two panes of glass had been shattered and some oak beading lost for good measure. Still, it looks lovely, or I think it will when it's finished.

Today I pitched up after the school run, armed and dangerous in my paint-spattered old jeans, a look I've come to enjoy, especially when I have to nip to the shop or the bank and wonder whether people think I'm a real workie (I'm brilliant at wiping my painty hands on these jeans but ought to learn to smoke fags if I want to be taken seriously). There had been more minor disasters over the last few days - the quartz for the 'open vanity' had to be taken back to the granite company because the drain holes were too small for the taps, and thank God we have Urban on the case because Jimmy the driver picked them up early this morning and returned them fixed shortly afterwards (our builders had nothing to do with the ordering or cutting of the quartz - some builders would have told us to sort the bloody thing out ourselves and it's heavy stuff).

The problem with the quartz had set the tiler back three days. The en-suite bathroom ought to have been tiled by Sunday evening but the plumber hadn't hung those steel brackets so the tiler couldn't tile around them (the plumber looks exactly like Stephen Merchant. I keep expecting Ricky Gervais to turn up with a spanner). When the plumber came to hang them yesterday the problem with the tap holes was noticed. Today there were more problems when the tiler pitched up to finish the job and decided to leave because the plumber was fitting the sinks. 'There are pipes in the wrong place' said the tiler as I arrived at the house. 'I was here until seven o'clock Sunday evening fitting that bathroom floor and now it's got to come up.' He wasn't happy - two tiles had to come off the bathroom - one from the wall and one from the floor. We only had one spare wall tile.

'Can it be done without knackering the other tiles?' I asked. He looked doubtful. 'You don't look confident,' I said. 'Can you do it?'

'The plumber will have to do it. He's the one who screwed up.'

I've come to the conclusion that trades don't always like each other - not on a personal basis, but a sort of 'plumbers don't like tilers' sort of thing. Electricians don't seem to like plasterers either, which is hardly surprising when you consider how often they must come back and find their cables have been plastered over - I'm amazed more actual fights don't break out.

The plumber had his own story - the pipes had been positioned before the sanitary ware had arrived on site - a 'best guess' was all he could make, which does make you wonder why the tiling gets done before the second fix plumbing but there's my female brain up to it's old tricks again. Now I know my Harris fencing from my architraves, I might offer myself as co-ordination facilitator to Carl the Builder, though I suspect my hair would fall out with the stress of it all.

Anyway, the plumber did remove the tiles and it was all fine. And then there was the matter of the wall-hung basin, which was hung for a person of about 7 foot tall (which the plumber happens to be). 'Can it be lowered? I asked him. 'We're not all as tall as you - my kids could never reach that sink.'

'If you'd wanted a childrens' bathroom, you should have said.'

'It's a family bathroom. That implies children. It doesn't mean a childrens' bathroom.' Actually I wanted to punch him on the arm for the last comment but managed to contain myself.

The unit was duly lowered by the plumber's mates. 'Is that better?' they asked.

'Yes, that's great. Didn't you think it was too high?' I asked. They both nodded. 'We positioned it for the cabinet without realising the sink was so tall. We were sure it was in the wrong place so we thought we'd wait and see if you mentioned it before we fixed it properly to the wall.'

Childrens' bathroom indeed. It looks lovely by the way, or like everything else, 'it will when it's finished.'

Slap of Paint

2011-11-17T12:15:00.000-08:00

'If you had a trade, what would it be?'

Dr B and I have been painting rooms together for the last three days, which is the most quality time (and conversation) we've had since August. Our conversations usually centre around measuring things and ordering things and worrying that something might not have been done. You might notice from the picture that those white rainwater gutters are on a road to nowhere - they drain right onto the site of the new driveway rather than into an actual drain - that's the sort of thing that's been keeping me awake at night and it's the sort of thing I notice and then start conversations about. I'm a renovation bore.

'I'd be a painter and decorator' I replied. 'Except I can't hang wallpaper and I don't like ceilings or gloss paint, so I'd be quite niche - I'd just paint walls. It's a quiet job so you can hear the radio.'

Dr B tells me he'd be a joiner because you get to see the project at the beginning and end stages of a job. Personally I'm happy for him to stay working in hospitals, where he doesn't come home covered in sawdust or plaster or gloss paint. Given the shenanigans when he took the radiators off, I don't think he'll be giving up his day job anytime soon.

We've been working alongide a team of professional decorators this week; they're painting one half of the house and we're doing the other. One of them is a bit 'slapdash' with his brush, which has been annoying me for days but came to something of a head this afternoon as I noticed he'd daubed white paint on the new kitchen units whilst walking past them to wash his brushes, and not a little splash but a bloody great dollop of the stuff. 'He's got cataracts,' explained Dr B as I was scrubbing at the unit with a damp cloth. 'He's waiting for an operation.'

'I don't think he can see,' I replied. 'His white paint is all over the place.' I decided not to mention it to his boss - he's a nice old guy who brings a flask and a newspaper and I'm a sucker for these 'salt of the earth' types. 'Can't you get him fixed a bit sooner - like tomorrow?.' Dr B thought not. I'll have to watch him like a hawk.

The house has been transformed in the last few days - incredible what a splash (quite literally) of white paint can do. Every room has now had at least one coat and six rooms are totally finished. The plasterers arrived with their scaffolding to begin rendering part of the front elevation - the brown layer in the photograph is the 'scratch coat,' (more new terminology) and has to dry out before the proper render can be applied. Meanwhile the tilers have started work on the family bathroom, running short of tiles by the end of the first day and realising they'd miscalculated, which left us in a spin and saw Dr B hotfooting over to Altrincham, where the tile supplier happened to have some leftovers from a job tiling the science labs at Manchester University. Of course, this suggests that my bathroom has the air of a science laboratory. Not sure whether this is a compliment or not.

Paint

2011-11-15T14:12:00.000-08:00

Beginning of week 15 and I finally have a few days off work. Will the joiner (who I am too polite to call 'Billy the Screw') has been chipping away at architraving (arcs) and skirting boards (skirts) and spent all of today constructing a new bannister for the staircase, which makes the place look more like a house than ever.

The curtain fabric arrived from John Lewis; it was such a heavy roll that I almost fell over trying to get it into my car but managed to get it to Linda the curtain lady in one piece, even remembering to rip open the wrapper on her doorstep and check they'd sent the right stuff. The old dresser has been collected by the french polisher, new bedstead delivered, cooker hood ventilated and the bifold doors have been replaced after the originals turned out to have been victims of an admin error (ie, not the right ones).

This morning I hit the painting after the school/nursery run, though it was 11am before I got around to opening the tin of 'Antique Cream' because there was the small matter of transporting one of the shower screens upstairs, which Will and our project manager managed by the skin of their teeth with about 10mm headspace to spare. And then there was the coving to paint and the industrial vacuum cleaner to receive, which needed a 'transformer' to reduce the power output and save me from frying myself quite by accident (I've tried it by the way - it makes a huge scary noise that leaves me shaking in the corner of the room but doesn't seem to have any more actual power than my own hoover at home).

Tonight we have one bedroom nearly painted and there's a man at the house fitting up a burglar alarm. Tomorrow more paint. And more paint after that.

Utility. For storing your crap.

2011-11-13T13:05:00.000-08:00

The utility room is about twice the size of the first kitchen we ever owned. I jokingly said to Dr B that we'd be okay the next time we fitted a kitchen because we could use the utility as a temporary one, but I don't think he saw the funny side.

The best things about the utility room are the mop/brush/ironing board cupboard and the 'charging shelf', which is a shelf inside a cupboard and incorporates a double socket for the purposes of charging things up - you know, like your camera or your screwdriver. No more arguments about wires all over the place - those cupboards could save marriages in the modern, technological age.

The empty housing at the front of the first photo is supposed to house our washer and dryer. It looks narrow to me but the fitter assured me that all washing machines are the same width. You know me, I always need something to worry myself about.

Fitted Kitchen. Fitted.

2011-11-13T12:54:00.000-08:00

It was with some trepidation that I watched the kitchen fitters unwrap the painted oak doors, since we had agonised for so long over the colour, as you know. It's only now the units are in I'm finally confident of that 'Elephant's Breath' and I'm pleased to say that it looks exactly like that 'putty' larder unit in Marks and Spencer.

The first photo shows the contrasting oak island unit which will house our hob, contrasting units being all the rage these days. You can also see the door to the utility room and the corner of the door to the playroom, partly obscured by that massive box containing a shower cubicle, which nobody seems to want to risk taking upstairs. Nothing works yet, of course and there are no worktops - the granite company are coming back with them next week.

The bottom picture shows the two ovens and the top of the dishwasher in it's cupboard. The oven on the right is also a microwave but as it's smaller than the single oven on the left, you have to buy a warming drawer to sit underneath it if you want them to look right sitting side by side. I have all sorts of fanciful ideas about warming plates and proving poppyseed bread but really I know it's just Seimens' way of makig a bit more money out of you.

End in Sight

2011-11-11T13:00:00.000-08:00

End of another week; week 14 in fact, which was Carl the builder's initial estimate of the time it would take to finish the renovation, but that was before we started knocking off old plaster and putting up coving

Today we met Allan the decorator at the house to hammer out who's painting what. Eddie the joiner was already there replacing our 1961 obscure glass with 2011 clear glass, while Carl's joiner was cutting skirting boards, the plasterers were applying coving and the kitchen fitters were, well, fitting kitchens.

The house has been full of tradesmen all week, which has left us painting during our evenings when we're not under their feet. Still only one room is complete - it's hard to get going on evening painting because you're tripping over boxes of switches and skirting board and other unidentifiable fixtures. Last night it took Dr B and his dad over an hour to remove two radiators so we could paint the walls and then we were all thirsty, which required a trip to the shop since the only water was in the downstairs loo and the cold tap had sprung a leak and been capped off. New plaster is lovely, but it requires a 'mist coat' before you paint the colour you really want, which means at least three coats of paint per room.

Second on our list today was visiting the steel fabricators who have made the brackets to hang the quartz for our washbasins. As soon as I saw them I could tell they were too tall, but we had to wait until the quartz was delivered this afternoon in order to mock up the basins, at which point it was clear that you'd have to be six foot ten in order to comfortably wash your face. Dr B was supposed to be painting but by 3pm he was hoofing back to the fabricators to have them shortened in time for the joiner to hang them on Monday next week.

The big news this week is that the kitchen and utility room have been fitted, which took three days in total. The granite firm came to template for worktops this afternoon, with more decisions to make about shapes and sizes. The kitchen is absolutely gorgeous, but sadly I forgot to take a photo of it so you're getting this one instead. The sparks were fitting the external lights today and we stood back on the grass to admire them. If you think they're good, wait until you clap eyes on the kitchen.

Barbeque

2011-11-06T12:16:00.000-08:00

You could be forgiven for thinking that we'd downed tools and cranked up the barbeque for the hell of it this afternoon - everyone knows we're closet Australians and today's Sydney blue sky was reason enough to chuck on some lovely yabbies.

In fact, the barbeque was going all afternoon in our new utility room in a desperate attempt to warm the house and persuade the plaster to dry before the kitchen is fitted next week, which isn't quite the lifestyle I had mind when we bought it. The fitters arrive on Thursday and we were no closer to getting the utility painted this morning than we were when it was plastered earlier in the week. As if that wasn't comical enough, we had the patio heater running in the living room and a hastily-purchased fan heater iin the playroom (which also stubbornly refuses to dry; the entire house is laughing in the face of our flooring deadlines).

It's been a busy week, punctuated by a nasty bout of vertigo, which I get whenever I have even the slightest of colds and makes me feel as though I'm permanently off balance. Vertigo knocks your vestibular system, but it also tends to alter some of your other senses, in my case leaving me freaked out by noises and busy environments and feeling as though I can't make decisions, which is exactly what I don't need at the moment.

There have been no photographs of the house this week because plastering makes for rubbish photographs and there's not much to say about it except that I feel sorry for anyone who works with plaster or anyone else who washes their dirty overalls because it's bloody awful stuff and it's now found its way into every nook and cranny you can imagine in the house. By Thursday the whole house was replastered, the effect of which was masses of condensation building up with no escape route other than to drip menacingly down the windows and their handles. The inside of the house is so humid that wooden furniture has swollen and the front door can now only be slammed shut via the letter box and only provided there's a big bloke on site to do it. The radiators are hanging on the walls but there's no boiler.

On Thursday we received a call from our site manager to say that our oak frame had arrived for the porch and that a person had also arrived to varnish it if we could simply decide on a colour, which was impossible because (a) we hadn't seen the frame and (b) we hadn't seen the choice of varnish. I suspect we now have a reputation for being 'fussy' but since the frame cost over £2000 there was no way I was choosing a varnish at random because it would almost certainly have turned out in 'vile orange' like the front door did when I treated that. In fact, the frame is really beautiful and we're absolutely thrilled with it (it's in two parts; you can see the top half of it sitting on the floor in the second photograph). All it needed was a clear varnish, which is exactly what the front door will now need to ensure it matches.

On Friday we took delivery of our sanitary ware, which includes a 'comfort height' toilet, which is much taller than your common-or-garden loo and lends itself to a more enjoyable toiletting experience, or at least, that's what Alan the Pan told me in the bathroom shop and who am I to argue? I shall be reporting back with toilet comparisons before the end of the month. We also took delivery of a lovely new slate house sign to replace the one that read 'The Croft', which was carted off on a skip last week.

Later in the morning we met with the kitchen designers again to look at the final details - things like what colour you want the insides of your cupboards and what sort of distance you want between the worktops (I think the standard is 120cm but you'd need another 20cm to allow for my hips alone). We ordered a stainless steel bracket to hang the quartz worktop in the en-suite bathroom (£275 for goodness sake!) and visited Steve the Gripper, who's carpet shop is so disorganised that I wonder how he manages to sell any actual carpet. Steve the gripper has a retired fitter who's quoting for our flooring. We had gone to the local carpet shop, where we've also bought our bathroom fittings, but their idea of 'looking after us' was to throw in a few free gripper rods for the stairs so we've gone looking for creative alternatives.

By Friday afternoon I was dizzy and sick, which wasn't helped by a trip up the M6 to look at the colour palette for tyrolean render - the plasterer is due to render the house and he swore blind that tyrolean render came in two colours, 'white' and 'cream.' Futher investigation revealed it came in about 15 colours and we eventually chose 'ivory' which you might think is unecessary detail but if you don't get the detail right, why bother renovating houses? Anyway, we've sourced cheap bags of the stuff and the man in the shop has told us it needs to be laid at least 5mm in thickness to avoid the plaster showing through. so now we're tyrolean experts extraordinare and I'll be out in the mud with my flaming ruler making sure it's the right thickness.

After the visit to the tyrolean there was a brief interlude in which Dr B met the electricians to discuss siting of the cooker hood in relation to floor joists and I got on with more important things like hoofing round John Lewis, where I made a total arse of myself by having mis-read the price of my curtain fabric and dissolving into a puddle when the lady totted up the bill and told me the living room curtain fabric would cost £950 and not the £600 I had accounted for. I even made her ring it through the till twice and check on ther website, but of course she was right and I was wrong, which meant I had to put it back and spend money on brushed chrome toilet roll holders instead, just so I didn't leave looking any worse. By Saturday afternoon I was trogging round Simon Boyd's fabric shop in Knutsford, which only confirmed my suspicion that there is not another fabric in this whole world that will match Crown Paint's 'Corset' beside the £950 stuff in John Lewis and with Linda the curtain lady on speed dial, I now have to find that money in the budget by hook or by crook.

Today we asked my in-laws to watch the children so we could paint the kitchen. My in-laws only babysit in 5 hour time slots and they wanted us home by 5pm so it was a good thing we'd bought one of those paint pod things (using the money we got for weighing in the copper pipes). I have a feeling I'm never going to want to paint another wall as long as I live. One room down, 14 to go.

Rewired for Sound

2011-10-30T06:26:00.000-07:00

There are many side effects of building renovation that you don't consider until you're already commited. Our two children have suffered no end of upheaval, not to mention having most of their toys placed into storage and (more recently) being unable to have friends round to play or stay for tea - which means they doesn't get invited to other kids' houses either. People are not necessarily as understanding as you might think and a year of your life is a long time when you're a kid.

One of the biggest things for me has been the electrics and especially the lack of music in the house. Initially this was because we'd packed away our CDs when we sold the last house, never bothering to unpack them because of the imminent building work (no, I don't have an i-Pod. Dr B has an i-Pod but he takes it to work with him to play in the operating theatre; Stairway to Heaven being an interesting choice). When we moved in, there were only two sockets in the living room, one of which was occupied by the television and associated gadgettry and the other of which was located awkwardly behind a cabinet and had to serve a variety of random cables such as laptops and docking stations, hardly ever getting itself connected to the music system, as you can see in the top picture.

The electrics were in such poor shape that you had to be careful not to overload the system, which meant the cooker, dishwasher, washer and dryer had to take turns to use the electricity. You could wash your clothes and cook your dinner but you couldn't wash any dirty pots at the same time. The result was wet clothes waiting to be dried and dirty pots stacking up beside the sink. Never have I needed some loud music more.

Now we have no electricity at all, but we have socket boxes all over the place. I never thought I'd be so pleased to spend money on a rewire - I'll be plugging in with gay abandon; music and washing and cooking all at the same time. Party Time.

Soggy

2011-10-30T06:09:00.000-07:00

Over to the house to meet another carpet fitter this morning. His eyebrows were raised so high when I said the house will be ready for carpeting in six weeks time that they practically left his face - he has no faith.

The new kitchen is completely plastered, the playroom and utility are boarded and the rest of the house is about 40% plastered too. Plasterer reckons it will be finished by Friday and Matt the Spark is due back then to complete the second fix electrics, which is handy as we've no light whatsover and the clocks have just gone back.

As the plaster dries without any heating, the house is damp and there's condensation all over the windows, dripping down from the Velux windows in the kitchen. We now have to prove it's unlivable to the local council in order to claim a 90% council tax rebate, which means sending them photogrpahs and a letter from the builder. As an alternative, they might have considered asking their own building control inspector, who we have paid £700 to carry out periodic checks. The building inspector could easily confirm the condition of the house, but this is the council we're talking about, and there's no such thing as joined-up thinking.

Tonight's task is to plan the new bannister. Newel posts, caps and spindles all need to be ordered to replace the 1960's deathtrap which would effectively serve as a ladder for small children. One of the first jobs we did on moving into the house was to cover it with perspex (the other was to sit in the corner rocking and worrying about the dodgy electrics). Now it's being ripped out and replaced with something more suitable for a family house. I think the bricks are the only things left that we haven't actually replaced.

Week End

2011-10-28T11:42:00.000-07:00

School holidays this week and we've been juggling childcare with trying to keep an eye on progress. Dr B impressed me no end by cutting out the old copper pipes from the central heating and taking them to a scrapyard with the old water cylinder, where he exchanged them for about £360 in cash. Ella helped carry the pipes, continuing her (self appointed) role as 'project manager.'

The plastering in the new extension was completed today, which means over half the total house is boarded and plastered and this time next week we'll probably have lights. Today we took one of our en-suite basins to the granite people who are cutting us a 1.5 metre piece of quartz offcut to sit them on, after which we went looking for carpets and staircase spindles. On Tuesday I had a minor heart attack in John Lewis when the nice man did a calculation of how much fabric I needed to make curtains for the living room, followed by a blue-light situation when the local carpet man calculated the square footage and told me I was looking at the best part of £3,500 to fit two 80/20 wool carpets and kit the remaining rooms with that nasty polypropelene stuff. I now realise this to be the down-side of enlarging your house - not only will it cost more to heat but you'll face enormous bills if you want new carpets, or anything else for that matter. And we don't even have curtain rails.

Alan the decorator came by for a part-payment this evening weilding the most enormous tub of paint I've ever seen in my life. Professional decorators must get through bloody vats of white emulsion, and though he's waiting for us to order colours for the rest of the house, I find myself option paralysed again. Determined not to mouth the words 'magnolia', not even in my sleep.

Colours

2011-10-23T03:52:00.000-07:00

As if my brain hasn't been hammered enough this week, arrived home to find paint and grout samples for us to choose. The 14 paint pots were supplied by the decorator and cost £40, which made me yelp because the children need new shoes. The grouts came from the tile shop in Altrincham. This is the sort of minute detail we continue to be involved with.

Today I'm off to the house to check where I will plug in lamps on the landing. Suspect we've forgotten a socket. Matt the Spark will be so chuffed when we ring him.

Plasterboarded

2011-10-23T03:46:00.000-07:00

Photos illustrate the main bathrrom and ensuite, followed by the landing, half plasterboarded.

They've made us an airing cupboard on the landing, which you can probably just about make out. The ensuite in the second shot shows the space for the double shower held in place by the stud wall to the left.

Absence Makes the Heart Grow...

2011-10-23T03:31:00.000-07:00

Returned from a week in Newcastle with some trepidation, not least because the nursery photographer has been in my absence and I'm still not sure whether Dr B put Alex's clothes on the right way round. He sent me a text on Thursday saying that the plaster in the old part of the house was knackered and needing to be completely removed, which made me feel slightly sick and provided quite a distraction from the neuroscience lecture I was supposed to be listening to.

I suppose it's a good thing that we've rumbled the dodgy plaster now - better than finding out when you try to hang a picture and the whole wall comes off at once. The house had thick plaster with no lining and had central heating for 50 years so it's no real surprise to find it had all dried out. At least we'll have nice smooth walls to play with.

Since learning about the plaster I've been dreaming about the house going 'back to brick' and imagining the dust and dirt entailed so that instead of taking notes in lectures I found myself plotting out schedules of work to enable us to get home for Christmas. I was expecting the house to look even worse than when I left but Dr B said I ought to go and have a look because Dr B knew that Carl the Builder had been on site at 6am yesterday morning with a brush in his hand (and that was a Saturday). In fact it didn't look too bad.

In the week I've been away, the gallows for the porch have been hung and primed and the stud walls upstairs in the extension have been plasterboarded. All of the plumbing is now in the right place after a brief moment when I spotted a rogue set of water pipes and couldn't figure out what they were supposed to supply (turned out the plumber was following the architect's plans rather than those drawn by the kitchen designer - the architect hadn't a clue how the inside of the house would look and drew a kitchen for illustrative purposes, which is very nearly what we'd have ended up with if I hadn't had my glasses on).

Yesterday they screeded the kitchen floor to bring it to the same level as the original house, so we can't walk on it for the rest of the weekend. I have the distinct impression it's all going to come together after all.

Mudbath

2011-10-13T03:05:00.000-07:00

I'm reluctant to mention to Carl the builder that our house has been turned into a mudbath because he'll probably sense a business opportunity and start handing out fluffy towels and charging membership. You don't get ahead in business without seizing your moment.

(Don't ask me why the writing on this blog is all 'spaced out' - I don't know - perhaps the man who hosts 'blogger' has been smoking weed).

Vinnie turned up on the job this morning. Vinnie is Carl's second-in-charge and I suspect the pair of them were bunking off school together this time 25 years ago, a crime I'm guilty of myself, which is probably why I can't add up.

'Carl's on his way' he said. 'He's got a plan, something to make you happy.'

What Vinnie and Carl don't realise is that I'm reasonably happy to begin with, though if Carl's plan involves sending us to the Bahamas until this thing's finished then I'll gladly pack my bags.

There's not been much progress over the last few days. The team are spinning several plates and one of the plumbers has taken time off work with a new baby - a situation we understand because we've been there ourselves, but the problem is we've both booked annual leave in a few weeks time - we need to get the house painted so it needs to be ready if we aren't going to waste our time off.

Carl's new plan involves sending a crack team of plumbers to 'batter' the house (as Vinnie put it) - it's a good thing I'm away in Newcastle all next week because the sight of the house being battered by plumbers would probably make me feel a bit ill, though I am slightly concerned about leaving Dr B in charge of the house and the children and wonder whether I ought to warn nursery that the little one might turn up dressed back to front with her knickers on her head.

You'll see from the picture that the house now has windows and the canopy roof at the front has been tiled in the last few days. The concrete slab has been laid on the garage floor, which means it can be measured for a door. The 'first fix' electrics are finished, which means there are cables hanging all over the place but still no electricity. There's still no plumbing, which I discovered when I used the downstairs toilet and had to return the next day with our mop bucket before I could flush the bloody thing.

This morning I had the man from the local Amtico supplier measuring up for flooring in the kitchen. I'd brought a sample door from the kitchen shop and typically, the matching floor was from the more expensive range (made in the UK) and not the Spacia stuff (made in China). And then the plumber pitched up and asked technical questions about the height of waste pipes and shower trays and I said I'd ask Keith the Click Clack, which entailed a trip into the shop and physically measuring the back of the toilets. For the record, the back of the toilet is 18.5cm off the ground. I haven't the foggiest what's going on in the real world these days but I know my waste pipes.

Empty kitchen

2011-10-09T06:32:00.001-07:00

...and this will be the kitchen. At the moment it's all woodwork and breezeblock but once the 'first fix' electrics and plumbing are in, it'll be plastered. Carl the builder gave us the keys for the bifold doors so the workmen can't open them and stand their muddy boots on the margins.

Really, really thrilled to get to this stage so quickly. Well done, Urban!

Bifold Doors

2011-10-07T15:02:00.000-07:00

Very productive day on Friday, due largely to the fact that I sent Dr B to London on a 'field trip' to Pudding Lane. Ella's learning about the great fire of London, though the trip was just a smokescreen to get the spreadsheet to myself and do some simple choosing and 'boxing off' which takes much longer when Dr B's around (you should see him in a restaurant, by the time he makes his choice, I've eaten the napkin).

Arrived at the house early to wait for a spray painter who didn't show up - I suspect he thought I was actually living in the house and I'd have my feet up watching Jeremy Kyle, when I was actually loitering around in the mud and the dust, looking as though I was keeping my eye on what the lads were doing, which seemed to be feeding a lot of electricity cables under the floorboards. A welder was installing some steel joists to support the porch roof - the place was a hive of activity again.

Round the back, the bifold doors had arrived and were being assembled on the lawn. The installer didn't like the colour, describing it as 'girly' and 'sparkly' and for a moment I worried we'd chosen the wrong ones before realising he just hadn't a clue about renovating houses, especially when he eyed up the old sliding doors and wondered whether he could make himself a shower enclosure out of the (untoughened) glass.

Anyway, after a hastily scribbled note directing the spray painter to look at a wardrobe and a drawer (back of an envelope job), I hobbled off to see the kitchen designer to discuss knobs and other small details; 'hobbled' because I've sprained my ankle and I'm wearing a tubigrip and wondering whether it's grounds for time off work, you know, to 'project manage.'

I've finally arrived at some sort of speed decision making because the utility room doors and knobs and sinks and taps were chosen in record time (I'm virtually pointing and grunting at this stage in the project) and then it was off to the bathroom shop where I was sad to find Keith the click clack going out on a delivery because I've mentally adopted Keith and am on the verge of asking what it would cost to have him delivered to the house, you know, minus the discount but plus the VAT.

So two basins were purchased and a shower cubicle was ordered and then I was off to look at sectional garage doors and quartz bathroom worktops and patio flags, where the man delivering the concrete told me to watch out for cowboy builders before promptly passing me a tatty business card with three spelling mistakes that left me doubtful he'd be much cop with a spirit level.

Anyway, this is the rear view of the house this weekend - loads of progress this week, not least the roof and bifold doors. The patio sliders in the living room have also been installed. Do you like the bifolds? - gorgeous colour, beautifully made and well installed. Our architect left them off the plans after we asked him to draw them. He reckons we don't get the weather for them - we'll be the judge of that. And anyway, given the price of them, we'll have them open on Christmas day

Lottery

2011-10-05T12:29:00.000-07:00

I was so tired coming home from work this evening, I thought I'd fall asleep at the wheel. We were up until gone midnight last night pouring over plans and marking on electric sockets, switches and aerials, for which I devised a nice little key in four shades of Ella's best coloured pens. The pens turned out to be sparkly pens but to be honest, I was so tired that I couldn't physically get up from the chair to swap them, and anyway, it's not every day you're presented with a nice glittery diagram, is it? Matt the Spark probably thinks I've lost it.

This morning we met with the kitchen designer, plumber and electrician, all of whom pitched up simultaneously at 8am and all wanting to discuss 'what goes where', so it was fortunate we were both able to get to the house. The window fitter, roofer and joiners were all working away by 8.15 - the house looked exactly like that programme '60 Minute Makeover', though unlike said programme, nobody was painting over my woodchip to give me a 'nice surprise.' (For the record, I'm not a fan of 60 minute renovations, which is why I'm making sure there's nothing left to renovate in this whole house. No nice surprises for me, ever).

We'd given plenty of thought to the electrics, though completely failed to notice that there was no wall space for light switches in the bedroom and ensuite, which meant a quick redraw of the stud walls and word with the joiner. And there's the issue of whether you'd have your outside lights all on at the same time - single switch or double? How many downlighters does one kitchen need? Where will we plug in the toaster? The hairdryer? My fingers when I've had enough?

To be honest, it was a relief to arrive at work, where I immediately telephoned the man who quoted for the driveway (Frank the Slab). He's been out to quote for the patio too, but nothing has appeared in the post. Frank's wife answered the phone, a voice betraying a 20-a-day habit and two grandchildren called 'Lambert' and 'Butler.' Frank wasn't home, she said - he'd popped to the co-op. By the time he called me back, I was in a meeting, so he left a Norman Collier message telling me he was coming back this evening with his lad, Terry - or at least I think that's what he said - the Norman Collier impression really was excellent and I heard only every third word.

'And this Quote our Terry gave you for the drive, it's wrong. I've got it £3,000 more expensive.'

'That's a shame' I replied. 'Cause I haven't got another £3,000.'

This week, I'm buying a lottery ticket.

Drains

2011-10-04T15:09:00.000-07:00

Mike the groundworker was on site when I arrived at 8.15 this morning, an impromptu meeting organised last night in order for me to talk through the positions of the stud walls upstairs. I don't know whether he owns the digger but he certainly looks at home in the seat and I can't help wondering why I chose a desk career rather than something where I could mess about with spades all day.

I was excited to see Mike because it was Mike who's misunderstanding led to the drains being removed, which means he's here to rectify his handiwork and install some drainage to the house, thus allowing us the luxury of using the toilet when we're on site rather than avoiding the blue cabin on the drive. The blue cabin has started to smell - there's no way I'm parking my bum in there - I'll keep carrying my membership card for the local gym and go there if nature calls.

As you can see, Mike has exposed some drains which lead away from our downstairs loo - as we suspected, the drains were accidentally smashed during the initial groundwork, so they need sorting out.

Dr B was stirring a curry when I got home from work. He explained that he'd met with Carl the builder and the issue of the drains had been discussed. 'We have two choices' he began. 'They can put a new drain in that trench or they can put one in the garage and feed it into the downstairs loo through the wall.' He continued to stir the curry while I turned white at the idea of the builders even setting foot in said downstairs loo, let alone breaking into it. As you probably know, the downstairs loo is sacred. It's the only room that's been done - God only knows how I'll let the electrician in there to sort out the wiring, but I suspect gin will be involved.

'Don't worry. I told them to put it into the trench.'

Knocked Through

2011-10-04T15:01:00.000-07:00

We appear to have reached the dreaded knock through, though to be fair, when you aren't living in the house there's not much to dread. This is the entrance to the first floor extension - the windows represent two bathrooms with stud walls yet to divide them.

You see that chink of light? That's us getting our life back, and it's almost within touching distance. I want to go home.

Roofless.

2011-10-03T12:49:00.000-07:00

Monday - Beginning of week 9. I don't much like Mondays at the moment because on Mondays I'm at home with our 2 year old and I'm doing 'Mummy things' like taking her to a music group and making Yorkshire puddings and waiting for that hour she goes to sleep at lunchtime so I can make phone calls about matters more pressing than Postman Pat and/or his flipping black and white cat. I've got showers to order, garage doors to consider, quotes to chase. I realise this makes me a bad mother, but the situation is temporary and in any case, it really is very difficult because I can't even go into the build because I can't risk the stress of taking her in there with me. Keep. Calm. Carry. On.

We were incredibly lucky with the weather last week - 24-27 degrees at the end of September and the roof went on with barely a hitch. I say 'barely' because the porch roof was removed and couldn't be replaced because the joiner and structural engineer realised it needed some sort of metal thingy to stop the new roof from collapsing - and that's got to be fabricated.

So the porch was left exposed all weekend, which was fine until yesterday when it rained all afternoon and evening and our recently-delivered letters sat exposed to the elements. A woman would never have made this mistake - she'd have thought through every possible thing that could go wrong and top of her list would have been a porch without a roof. I rang the builder's wife today ask her to talk to him about the porch roof before my new textbooks arrive from Amazon and suffer a similar fate. It's good to have at least one woman on the job.

Anyway - progress on the house today - The scaffolding was supposed to come down but didn't - I think it's taken root and we'll have to put up with it. The joiners were busy hammering down the flooring upstairs, which means you can now actually walk around the new first floor. I discovered this by chance when I called by to collect the post - Mike the project manager invited me to go and have a look, which left him 'babysitting' my younger child while she sat in the back of the car (she's not allowed in the house since, as you know, she's always looking for new and interesting ways to kill herself and the house currently offers several options).

As I walked upstairs I could see that the main bedroom had now been split into two by a stud wall partition to create bedrooms 4/5. 'You're not going to put the other stud walls up today, are you?' I asked the joiner. ''because they're not in the same position as they are on the plans.'

The looks on their faces told me they were about to do exactly that.

'So where do you want them?'

'I haven't got the exact measurements. Dr B has been plotting the rooms out - I'll ask him when he gets home.'

'And the airing cupboard?' they asked

'Not in the same place,' I replied.

Bloody good job I popped in. Good job Mike told me to look upstairs, good job he was on hand to 'babysit' the car so I could go into the house. Living away from the build has obvious advantages, but not being on site every day is potentially much more hazardous.

Matki

2011-09-30T12:39:00.000-07:00

This is the Matki Essence concealed valve - it's on the front of the Matki brochure, which is probably because it's so damned good looking. Gorgeous isn't it? And a snip at £1,100, though admittedly you get a shower head to match it and a hand held rinser thing that allows you to reach..ahem...other parts (you know, like the corners of the shower tray).

Anyway, the reason I'm showing you this is because I've been to the bathroom shop this afternoon, where Roger the tap and Keith the click clack have been looking at our plans and weighing up my amateur bathroom designing skills, which are only marginally better than your average orang-utan might achieve with the same pencil.

The Matki Essence valve is non-negotiable, you see. Despite the price, this is not a corner that can be cut or a saving that can be made and the reason for this is because the Matki Essence has been winking at me since 2004 and would have been fitted in our last project around that time if our budget hadn't then run away with itself, much as it's doing at the moment. In fact, the Matki Essence is beginning to feel a bit like Warner Brothers' Road Runner - always just out of reach of Wile. E. Cayote, only this time the Cayote is me and I'm going to catch it.

'You can't fit it on a wall' says Roger the tap. 'Well, not on an external wall - it has to go on a stud wall.' I hadn't a clue about this, so it's a good job I went to the bathroom shop because the other option is to buy all of this stuff online where nobody is going to advise you about what goes where.

'And your stud partition is blocking your light' he points out, quite rightly - just in time to save the said partition wall from being built and rendering the corner of the en-suite our very own black hole of Calcutta.

I like this bathroom shop. Keith the Click Clack lives round the corner from me. He noticed the postbox had been knocked down, but he's willing to forgive me because he likes my new roof. You don't get that online either. Long live the local business.

Dresser

2011-09-30T11:55:00.000-07:00

I think Dr B had a bit of a moan at Carl the builder last night about the rubble inside the house because Carl and one of the lads were on site at 7am this morning cleaning up. Carl's business empire seems to be expanding quickly - I see his signs and vans all over town, though I can't say I'm surprised because from the minute he walked up the drive, his customer service has been fantastic and he's really taken the time to think the job through.

'The thing is with Carl,' says our kitchen designer, 'he's bothered.'

It's a small thing - being 'bothered' - but when a builder isn't 'bothered' about your job then you might as well forget it. You'd think they would all be 'bothered' but they're not, and this is why we chose Carl. He deserves to do well.

This morning I visited a furniture restoration workshop armed with a drawer from our old welsh dresser, which I am hoping they can transform by painting it in Farrow and Ball. I have a theory that you can transform anything by painting it in Farrow and Ball because the colours are so complex.

We've had the dresser for 16 years, though it's been sitting in various garages for the last six of those, or rather the top of the dresser has been in garages - Dr B couldn't accept that pine was unfashionable and insisted that it stayed in the house, so removing the top was some sort of unhappy compromise which came to it's natural conclusion when we had our second child and had to remove the rest of it to the garage in order to make room for some displaced bookshelves.

(Dr B often has difficulty with fashion, which is why I sometimes have to dispose of his clothes to passing rag and bone men - it's for his own good).

Anyway, despite being deeply unfashionable, the dresser has sentimental value, which Dr B would tell you lies in the fact he worked a 48 hour locum shift to pay for it and I would put down to it being one of the first pieces of furniture we bought for our first property, an old Victorian flat in Reading.

The flat was our first 'proper' home and it was located on Alexandra Road, which is how our second daughter acquired her name. It was also the first 'proper' home I'd had since my mother decided I was leaving home at 18. Being kicked out of home is a thoroughly unpleasant and horribly scary experience, particularly the part where you register with a GP and have to describe yourself as 'homeless' - I suspect this is responsible for my obsession with houses and properties and with having a 'roof over my head' ever since (and what a lovely roof we have).

So the dresser has been biding it's time in the garage (and so have the ceramic knobs we bought for it during the last 5 minutes it was fashionable, knobs which have been living in my knicker drawer ever since), but Andy the lathe is going to restore this dresser and paint it up and change the knobs until it's unrecognisable and back in fashion, or at least that's what I'm hoping until Andy picks up the sample drawer and tells me it's actually a 'waxed' dresser and he'll have to get the wax off first - at which point the whites of his eyes display actual pound signs and I feel the coins physically draining from my purse and onto the sawdusty floor.

I'm waiting for a price, though I'm wise to it now. If you want to know what something will cost, think of a number. Then double it.

Rock Bottom

2011-09-29T11:56:00.000-07:00

Fed up today. End of week 8 - we have a roof (well, the front of the house has a roof, the back is waiting for velux windows) - I ought to be really pleased. I'm just fed up.

The house has degenerated into an absolute hole. Wherever I walk there's crunchy rubble under my feet - whatever I touch leaves me covered in dirt and dust. I realise this is a building site, but it's also my home, my house. There's no way it could be left in this state if we were haivng to live in it - surely.

Our lovely new front door has been scratched across the front in two places. The front lawn isn't recovering from having the roof joists delivered there by mistake. I never want to renovate a house again.

Met with a guy from a garage door company today. His price is even higher than the first, and £1,100 more that the 'provisonal cost' our builder has worked into the budget. The plumbing has come back £6,000 over budget, the kitchen £2,000 over budget. And these budgets were carefully worked out - we couldn't have been more meticulous if we'd tried. We didn't want to be in this position.

We could make some compromises - kitchen appliances for a start - we could have a smaller hob, a cheaper brand of oven, we could ditch the larder. Problem is, this is our 'forever home' as Kirsty Allsop is so fond of saying - we haven't done all this work and put our family through such hideous upheaval so we can fit crappy appliances that'll need replacing when they blow up this time next year. It's a higher-end house - you can't fit it with crappy fixtures.

I think I'v hit rock bottom with this project. I don't want to think about it for another minute longer than I have to.

New Bedrooms

2011-09-29T03:20:00.000-07:00

More progress inside the house this week. The master bedroom is about to be split into two smaller rooms, which has involved blocking up the original door and beginning to create an alcove which will give access to both rooms. The mess and filth has to be seen to be believed - to think I shout at the kids for leaving their toys hanging about the house - I think I've developed a new tolerance after all of this.

Bedroom 3 has also been enlarged by the removal of the airing cupboard. That's the old cylinder in the picture. For some reason half the plaster's missing in this room. The word bombsite springs to mind.

Residents

2011-09-29T03:01:00.000-07:00

Met Linda the curtain lady at the house this morning. The house has had a new roof this week so it's looking good and the porch roof is also taking shape.

Linda is quite glamorous by my standards - she carries an actual handbag on her arm, so I don't think she was terribly impressed at having to wade through the dust and rubble in her nice shoes, and she was even less impressed when there was nowhere clean to rest her handbag. I offered my shoulder (not to cry on - to put the bag on) and used my arm as a table for her clipboard.

Apparently our curtain rails are excellent, so it's a shame they are filthy and covered with little wooden pelmets. The pull cords have gone too, so quite why she thinks they're so good is a mystery. except to say you can't buy them anymore.

Our neighbour came out to chat - she's been here for more than 30 years and knows Linda because Linda has made her curtains.

'It's great, isn't it?' says Linda nodding towards the house.

'It's a mansion' replies our neighbour. 'I'll have to curtsey'.

I'm not sure whether our neighbour likes the new house - or rather, I think it's bigger than she had imagined. I agree with her - it's bigger in real life than it looked on the plans, but it's a huge improvement to the street scene, or at least it will be when the scaffolding comes down.

The other residents are also starting to get a bit shirty about the number of vans parked along the road. To be fair, there are four or five vans at any one time and it looks messy but it's also perfectly possible to drive past them and on the odd occasion they might be taking a delivery then it's possible to drive out of the road in the other direction.

Others are stopping me on the street telling me they're enjoying watching the progress. Mothers on the school run have noticed the house changing, they know it's ours and they think it's fantastic. Can't please everyone, eh?

Bricking it

2011-09-26T12:34:00.000-07:00

Our brickies have finished up today, which seems quite a milestone. We need no more bricks - this house is built. One of their last jobs was bricking up an internal wall that had previously been a 'decorative' glass partition between the hall and the dining room. 'Decorative' it might have been (and that depends on your point of view), but the dining room will become our study and there's no way I'm allowing a window into Dr B's study, as this will only reveal a mass of unfathomable wires, torn up envelopes and half-arsed attempts to invoice BUPA for somebody's clicky hip.

They've also bricked up the serving hatch, presumably because I don't look like a lady who needs one (and they'd be right - I have a melamine tray for that sort of thing). I'm pleased with the overall effect as I thought the new wall would make the hall too dark, which it doesn't seem to.

Dr B's been acting a bit cagey for the last couple of days. He's been speaking to the plumber about our replacement central heating and new boiler. The builder says it's going to cost no more than £5,000 - he's quite certain about this, which is reassuring. The plumber has other ideas - he says it's actually £10,000. Dr B didn't know how to tell me.

The problem is, we don't have that sort of flexibility in our budget anymore - not since the extra steel and the new roof tiles. I'm wondering whether Carl the builder needs any more staff. Somebody to brew up, stroke their chin and chew pencils. I'm good at that.

Anyone want to buy a kidney?

Nameless

2011-09-26T12:09:00.000-07:00

I've probably never mentioned that our house is officially called 'The Croft'. It was given this title in 1961 by the previous owners, who I believe moved here from the Home Counties and bought the plot of land from the builder. They rented a house nearby while this one was being built - we have the original architect's drawings and alternative designs they didn't choose, one of which I wish they had.

For some reason, the drawings were hand painted in watercolours and featured an abundance of blue skies, which no doubt foxed the original owners into making the move north. We all know the architect was being economical with the truth because the skies here are grey. Perhaps he also told them it was enclosed by pastures and roaming with sheep, which is the only explanation I can think of for them calling it 'The Croft.' We even inherited a cast iron address stamp for our letterheads.

Anyway, it isn't a bloody 'croft', it's a sixties palace. I've toyed with the idea of officially renaming the house but it seems slightly pretentious in the circumstances - my nan would be turning in her grave at the idea of me living on the posh side of town in the first place (advising throughout my childhood that folk in this neighbourhood were 'all fur coat and no knickers'), I think she'd send a thunderbolt if I gave our house a name.

I think the house will remain nameless. It'll be number 2.

Felting, Batoning

2011-09-26T12:02:00.000-07:00

We're very lucky with the weather forecast this week - almost October and a forecast of 25 degrees for Wednesday, which surely makes the roofers' jobs easier. They worked through the weekend to get this far - the top photo was taken on Friday, the bottom one this evening.

Beginning of week 8 - our project manager swears it's week 7 but he's done his sums wrong. They started on August 8th - seven full weeks have been completed.

Roofing

2011-09-23T12:00:00.000-07:00

The roofers have been working for a few days now. The result is a roof shape at the front and back of the house, which is giving me a much better idea of how it will look when it's finished. The brickies are still on site - brickwork to the gable ends still isn't quite complete - Tate's assessment of the situation is the same every day, when he always tells me 'there's two more days work for us.'

This morning I noticed the Royal Mail fitting a new post box outside the house. The post

box was knocked over by some unspecified truck yesterday - the builders are blaming Travis Perkins, but the man in the bathroom shop lives further down the road and he's heard it was Huws Gray. Whoever mowed the bloody thing down, I'm grateful not to have to deal with the wrath of the neighbours, most of whom make some sort of daily pilgrimage to post letters. I'm impressed anyone can mow a postbox down to be honest - a true 'Fawlty Towers' moment and I wish I'd been there to see it.

Roll Up

2011-09-21T12:45:00.000-07:00

This is a garage door. Our garage door needs to be almost 5 metres wide, which means it's apparently going to cost £2,300 to install something like this. It's German you see, and everyone knows that doubles the price, which is why we can't have that £17,000 aluminium canopy over the patio either (though I'm still hoping to sweet talk Ray at BAS to supplying it for a more managable price - like £24.99).

Yesterday I had an appointment at the garage door showroom during my lunch break. The salesman was a bit taken aback when I said I wanted a 'sectional' door. 'You know what you're talking about, don't you?' he said. 'I'm not spending two grand without doing my homework.' I replied. I can't help wondering what on earth other people are doing when they renovate a house - don't they go and have a play with the remote control doors before they buy them? Don't they have a fold of the bifold doors?

The Winchester Tile company have sent us another sample in their 'truffle' colour, which confims my suspicion that either there's been a massive fault on the production line, or else their 'truffle' tile doesn't have the same glaze as the other colours they make. The truffle has to go - and we have to go back to the showrooms.

Undivided

2011-09-21T12:24:00.000-07:00

There used to be a wall here. In fact, it used to be a cupboard which divided the bathroom from bedroom 3. The cupboard housed the hot water tank, which meant the bedroom and bathroom were always baking hot, especially since the bedrooms have south facing windows. I hadn't realised how ill this had made me feel until the gas was shut off and the water tank no longer heated up, at which point we no longer needed to put our toddler to bed with a fan trained on her cot.

You can still see the pipes feeding the water heater from the header tank in the attic, and the exposed brickwork on the back wall illustrates the depth of the cupboard and how much space we'll gain the bedroom 3 now the cupboard is removed.

I once saw a programme on the telly where they removed all the partition walls in a house. It was inspired by the Japanese, apparently. Since ours started to come down, I see you really can remodel the internal layout if you want to - it's not just a Sarah Beeny thing.

Bathroom, Be Gone!

2011-09-21T12:15:00.000-07:00

I think Tate the brickie is quite proud of his handiwork. I hadn't realised he'd knocked the bathroom out until I went upstairs this morning, and this is despite the upturned bath sitting in the skip. You can see part of the banister doesn't match - that's because until yesterday, that was a solid wall with our bathroom sink on the other side. The window at the back will be removed to allow us to knock through into the new extension, which creates a galleried landing where the bathroom used to be. I love it looking open like this but the plans show an airing cupboard. I know the airing cupboard will be useful and practical (and I will be able to dry the kids' woolly tights there in the winter), but I think this landing is begging for a sofa.

Rubble

2011-09-21T11:45:00.000-07:00

Tate the brickie eyed me suspiciously as I walked up the drive this morning. 'Are you going to shout at me?' he asked.

'No - why, what have you done?'

'Nothing'

You can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs, apparently - or in this case, you can't bring down a chimney stack without littering the old kitchen with the rubble, war-zone style. Yes - this is my kitchen. And that was my chimney.

Woody Nora!

2011-09-21T11:38:00.000-07:00

Standing outside the house after work last night, I knew something was different. It's been a long few weeks, so it took me a moment to work out that the cedar cladding had been mostly removed, and so had one of the chimneys (the house had two - one serving a fireplace and one serving an old boiler). You can see where the chimney has been removed - it looks like a velux window.

Our project manager was convinced we'd find breezeblock underneath the wood. Such little faith - Mr Ashall built this house and he built it to last.

Trades

2011-09-16T10:19:00.000-07:00

I was trying to work out what light this used to service this morning - it's difficut to tell with the old kitchen in such a mess but suffice to say the old electrics are hanging (quite literally) from the rafters and I don't fancy plugging the toaster in. Tate and Dan (the brickies) were on site again this morning and I'm pleased to confirm that the cement mixer was mixing cement rather than washing their undies as I'd suspected. Oddly for a builder, Dan is afraid of the electrics and having to curl this flex up into the ceiling sent him white. Can't say I blame him, but then I don't work on a building site, I work in a prison, where I'd be buggered if the jangling of keys had the same effect.

Our project manager turned up at 9.15 to discuss the splitting of the largest bedroom, which is a great room but can't really accommodate an en-suite bathroom due to it's location, which is just about as far away from the plumbing as it could get. The room will be split in a 2/3 arrangement to provide guest bedrooms but the builders need to know where to put the dividing wall.

Next up we met with 'Gary the Window' (I think all people ought to be known by their trade, which is why we've dubbed Ella's swimming teacher 'Sue the Fish'. Of course, this makes Dr B 'Will the Gas', though in the circumstances I'd be surprised if he had grounds for protest). Gary asks me where I want the window openings and which bits need obscure glass. Does the garage need an opener? Probably not. What about obscure glass in the utility room? Erm I'm not sure.

After Gary leaves, it's onto the central heating, which I suppose involves 'Graham the Pipe'. Carl has given us a quote of £5,000 to replace the boiler and heating, but £5,000 is a 'PC sum', which means 'provisional cost' and could go up or down according to exactly what's required. At this late stage, a 'PC sum' needs ironing out, especially with the possibility of paying for a new roof, which is why we've asked to talk to Graham. Carl assures us it won't go up, but Graham has the look of a man who knows the cost of a Worcester boiler and I'm prepared to believe that could change.

The older part of the house needs new central heating since the radiators are 50 years old and no longer effecient (or attractive). Graham calls them 'rads', which is builder-speak - a whole language of it's own which I'm sure they no longer realise they use. Dr B uses similar doctor-speak for his green tubing and anaesthetic gases and I just nod enthusiastically and look like it's making sense (if you look confused, a lengthy explanation ensues and I've learnt to cut my losses).

Graham measures each room and calculates the cubic area and the number of external walls, which gives him the 'BTUs' required to heat it. This allows him to choose the right sized radiator, something I'd never given any thought to until we began this project. Some new radiators will be in new positions, some walls will be left free of radiators where vertical ones are used to save space. The porch will finally get some heating, which means we'll no longer have to suffer freezing cold boots and tossing coins to see who's turn it is to open the front door in the winter.

And then there's the new boiler, talk of which leaves me totally confused because try as I might, I can't get my head round 'unvented' systems and combi boilers and condensers. I try to look knowledgable but all I really know is that condensers have run-off pipes and they're prone to freezing in the winter, which means you ought to have wider pipes and lag them if they're in a cold place. Everything else I know has been gleaned from 'Which' magazine, who seem to change their mind about everything every other week - I'm trusting that Dr B and Graham's muttering about the heating system will keep us warm and keep the pipes from freezing. After that I really can't get excited about it.

With Graham measuring the rooms, Carl turns his attention to the issue of venting our cooker hood. Our hob will be on the central island, but unfortunately this is situated directly beneath those steel beams and we've been wondering for quite some time whether we'll be able to run the venting system to an outside wall or whether we'll have to buy a 'recirculating' extractor hood, which I've heard don't work very well despite being more expensive. My understanding is that the vent can run to any outside wall but can only have one or two turns (or 'elbows') otherwise it won't work properly. Of course, Carl sees the solution immediately - we'll vent it to the nearest wall and the vent will run alongside the steel. Despite scratching our heads for several months, we were totally unable to see this solution, which is why Carl builds houses and we don't.

The final point to discuss was the new roof, which has become more important since I saw the lovely new grey one that's on a house round the corner. Once you've seen something you could do, it becomes increasingly important that you do it. I think Carl thinks the same - he wants to replace the roof because it will provide a better finish to the job. Eventually we agree a price we can afford and we're officially going grey - hurrah!

By eleven o'clock we'd installed ourselves in a cafe with bacon butties and a plan for the rest of the day. First off, a visit to the kitchen designer to tell him about the 'Elephant's Breath' and the 'Bianco Sardo' granite and our decision against the Quooker, which is one of those instant hot water taps that look fantasic but cost a minimum of £500. He also needs to cost up our appliances and the units for the utility room, another 'PC sum' that's floating about on our spreadsheet.

Afterwards we headed to bathroom shops, by which point I'd started to flag and found the only place to sit was on an actual toilet, which drew quizzical stares from passers-by. The assistant in the first shop showed us an oval basin that looked lovely but we concluded would be 'too splashy' and a tap that swiveled from side to side but looked 'too shonky.' And then she asked me whether I wanted a 'click' waste or a 'push' waste and I had to admit that by this point I'd struggle to choose between 'bacon' and 'eggs' and would quite like a 'plug' and a 'plug hole', which have apparently gone out of fashion since I last looked.

And then skirting boards were chosen (lamb's tongue design if you're interested) and we arrived home to find tile samples from the Winchester Tile Company, which we've decided are probably worth the expense, especially if they really were knitted on board the Al Fayed yacht.

Nine more weeks to go.

Propped Up

2011-09-15T11:14:00.000-07:00

When I say the first floor is propped up by table legs, I'm not joking. I can't tell you how many times I've mentally pictured this whole thing collapsing. I'm sure these builders know what they are doing but it's always a little disconcerting to see your house looking so...vulnerable.

Dropped in to see what progress had been made today. The answer was 'none' since yesterday, though the concrete mixer was turning round as usual, which I suspect these brickies do on purpose whenever they see me coming up the road. I've never thought to check whether there's anything in it - for all I know it's doing their washing. It's frustrating when nothing happens on a 'good weather' day at this stage, especially when the forecast tomorrow says 'rain.'

Putty

2011-09-14T02:24:00.000-07:00

We've arrived at the stage of discussing 'fine details.' Not that we've ever stopped thinking about the finer details of this renovation, agonising over doors and kitchen appliances has become part of our daily routine, like brushing teeth and picking up the children's dirty socks.

Our kitchen designer is waiting for decisions from us, not least a decision about what colour the kitchen will be. See, if you buy from Wickes or John Lewis then you don't get much choice; they'll lay out some cabinet doors and you choose from 'linen' or 'buttermilk' or else you'll go for a high gloss aubergine in some moment of hormonal madness and probably regret it a fortnight later. But a kitchen maker peson will give you free reign, or as Emile said to us, 'you can have any colour in the world you like.'

Now that's my idea of a nightmare; 'option paralysis' being a real threat to the progress of any extension where you're given an actual choice. Initially I wanted the kitchen painted in Farrow and Ball's 'Elephant's Breath' because I'd seen one in a magazine, but painting sample pots onto lining paper revealed 'Elephant's Breath' to be more reminiscent of the horrible grey tiles adorning the existing bathroom and pretty soon we'd settled for 'Cornforth White' and chosen the granite to match.

But then I saw this larder cupboard in Marks and Spencer, which hit me in the face as I glided up the escalator towards the bedding department and had me waxing lyrical to the sales assistant about the colour, which the label described as 'putty.'

Of course, Dr B. had to be consulted about this 'putty', so I took him along to visit the larder cupboard and he agreed it was all very suitable and advised we needed to go to B&Q to pick up some paint charts in an effort to match the colour. And not just B&Q but also Homebase (who stock Farrow and Ball) and then John Lewis too, because you can't discount that lovely understated Sanderson paint, can you?

John Lewis had whole walls of Sanderson paint charts, but none of them looked putty-ish to me, though some were out of stock. Typically, the paint charts that were out of stock turned out to be the ones we wanted, so we had to order them from head office and wait for them to come in the post. And when we laid them all out, we found some of them were obviously too brown or too pink or too grey, which left me with a handful of samples to take back to compare with the larder in Marks and Spencer.

I managed to narrow it down to four colours and bought the sample pots, though none seemed exactly right from the charts. Relaying the story of the elusive 'putty' to our friends Claire and James, James suggested I paint the samples onto wood rather than lining paper, explaining the wood might take up the colour more accurately than the paper and disappearing into his shed to saw off some old bits of knotted pine as the best match he could find for the oak doors that we'll have painted. 'And you'll need primer too', he shouted from the garage as I left, emerging with a half-empty tin of the stuff.

So I primed the wood and waited overight for that to dry before painting two to four coats of the four samples, depending on how much the wood showed through. Finally, I took the wood sample to Marks and Spencer to compare it to the larder cupboard, which lo and behold was an exact match to the colour you can see on the right hand side.

The colour is by Farrow and Ball. It's called Elephant's Breath.

Knock Out

2011-09-14T01:56:00.000-07:00

Halfway through week six and I visited the house after the school run this morning. The decorators are due to arrive today, not because there's anything cosmetic to be done at this stage, but because they might as well get on with stripping the nasty old wallpaper from the rest of the house. Experience of stripping walls tells me this could add further expense to the job - they'll probably blow plaster and find mouldy bits and we'll end up pleading with the plasterer to help us out.

Yesterday the builders removed the back wall of the old kitchen, which has enabled them to place all that steel into the brickwork. The red joists you see in the bottom picture are the steel, and though they look like one piece, it's actually one piece over the bifold door opening (to support the pitched roof) and another one about 3.3 metres behind it, holding up the brickwork of the first floor since the back wall was removed. I'm sure it's all perfectly stable, but the fact remains that our first floor is being propped up with what look like a load of old table legs and it hardly inspires me to go jiggling about Alex's bedroom.

You'll see from the top photograph that we're close to the first floor brickwork being complete, in fact it ought to be finished before the end of this week. Next week we're due to get a roof, which throws up problems because we can't source roof tiles to match the originals in colour. We've trawled the builders' merchants and brought back samples and I've even been in touch with a salvage yard in West Sussex who are sending a sample tile via courier but the more time goes on, the more it looks like we can't match it up.

There are a few options - we can have a roof that doesn't match the original (is that really an option?) or we can can remove the tiles from the back of the existing house and place them on the front of the extension so at least it looks the same across the width of the house. This will cost us an additional £1750 in purchasing new tiles to replace the old ones on the existing house, though I'm still trying to compute that because if we provide the tiles for the extension and also pay for the tiles for the new roof, I'm pretty sure that means we've paid twice.

The alternative is to have new tiles on the existing roof. I'd love a new roof, a grey one - but finding that sort of money in our budget is tricky, especially since the bathrooms and kitchen have worked out more expensive than we thought and we've spent £2,500 on extra steelwork. I'm going over the budget with a fine toothcomb, but at this rate we'll be looking down the back of the sofa for twenty pences.

Utility Room week 5

2011-09-12T05:31:00.000-07:00

And this will be the utility room with the backdoor/window frame visible straight ahead (this actually opens to the side of the house so I suppose not strictly a 'back' door). The door opening you can see on the right hand side will be a fire door connecting the house with the garage and allowing us to vacate the car and come straight into the house without getting wet/cold (or messing up our hair) in the winter. After the last two winters, I'm quite giddy at the prospect of a remote control garage door and driving right into the house.

Already I'm seeing a belfast sink with one of those stretchy hose-type taps for washing muddy wellington boots. I'm seeing labelled boxes stacked neatly into cupboards. Stain removers, light bulbs, batteries. If you're reading, Philippa McFarlane, this is all your fault.

Playroom week 5

2011-09-12T05:25:00.000-07:00

This will be the little playroom - I say 'little' because it's smaller that I thought it would be, though until the roof's on, it's hard to tell. The back wall and return have been constructed from block and brick because that wall will support quite a bit of steelwork which holds up our new bedroom.

We've been wrangling over window frames with the window fitter, who tells us not only do we have to have those ugly trickle vents (building regulations for all newly built property) but the window is too tall for conventional openers and will require top lights (those small windows at the top which open to vent the room). Eventually he conceeds we could have tilt and turn instead. The battle of the top lights is won!

Kitchen No More

2011-09-12T05:19:00.000-07:00

Our kitchen has now been removed by the builders, which was a teeny bit of a mistake, since we need more money from the bank in about three weeks time and the bank won't lend money on a house without a kitchen because a house without a kitchen is 'unmortgagable.' Note the attractive boarding up of that sixties serving hatch (I'll miss it in a funny 'Crossroads' sort of way).

So now we have to knock this kitchen down and install some sort of drains and a sink/draining board and cupboard, which apparently constitutes the minimum 'kitchen' which will allow us to obtain an advance on the mortgage. Our brickie's still got the sink, he says - so all's not lost. It's hard to picture how all of this is going to look except to say that the new kitchen is about four times bigger. And it doesn't have a serving hatch.

Progress - week five

2011-09-12T05:14:00.000-07:00

Photographs taken at the weekend show the progress to the end of week five. Steelwork lies on the driveway waiting to be lifted, all ground floor brick work is complete and some first floor joists are in place. Lawn hasn't been mowed for weeks and is beginning to take on shagpile carpets proportions. Hardly a priority, I know, but having spent all spring/summer scarifying the bugger of moss, I have a vested interest in it's continued upkeep.

Back Online

2011-09-12T05:01:00.000-07:00

Since the disaster with the drains and the plumbing and the rapid house move (or should that be 'bungalow move'?) we've been without internet connection for over three weeks, during which time the renovation has moved on considerably and I've driven myself to distraction trying to look for bathroom taps on Dr B's i-Phone (no, I don't have an i-Phone, I have an old fashioned version that only rings 2.5 times before cutting off and not even the shop can figure out why).

We're now at the beginning of week 6 and the ground floor brick and blockwork was finished about a week ago, though things were then held up due to the late delivery of the steelwork (which cost us an extra £2,500 since the structural engineer has apparently over-engineered the building such that it can now take the weight of a multi-storey car park - reassuring I suppose, but I'd already mentally spent that money on a Multi-York sofa).

And then they waited for the scaffolding and as of last Friday, we were waiting for 'more scaffolding' to help them reach the highest brickwork and to provide access for the roofer. You'll see from the photograph that the front of the build now proudly displays two new window openings (bathroom to the left, en-suite to the right) as well as new windows to the existing building, which completes the replacement of all windows on the front elevation and marks the beginning of that horrible cedarwood cladding being ripped off (hurrah!).

Bricks, we want more bricks.

2011-08-25T13:27:00.000-07:00

August 25th - I find myself scanning the skies all day hoping the rain will hold off so we can get this up and get the roof on.

Spent today trying to get our name on the utility bills at the rental cottage, moving our phone number and re-directing our Sky TV. I'll be glad when this is over. Top picture shows the opening for the bifold doors.

Blocks

2011-08-25T13:17:00.000-07:00

August 23rd and the blockwork and brickwork are taking shape. I always assumed they constructed the breezeblock and then the outer skin of brick but they actually seem to do it simultanously. Note the cavity wall insulation in yellow. This picture shows the edge of the family room - the opening for the bifold doors will be across the back with french doors on the side.

Oh and we have permission to build it from the original builder (well not the original - he's dead, I suspect). Before we bought the house we read all the small print in the original deeds, which included any alterations requiring permission from the original builder. As this is legally binding, we had to sort it our before we could start work - this meant tracing which company had taken over the original builder's company and obtaining permission from them (£80 thanks very much) - any oversights would lead to problems if we ever decided to sell. Aside from that, our latest bill was £680 from building control at the council, who want the said sum to pay them for coming out and making sure it's being built to the required standard.

Am beginning to feel like a cash machine.

Fenced Off

2011-08-25T13:13:00.000-07:00

The house really does look like a bombsite. That's 'Harris Fencing' and it's all over the place - you learn all sorts of new vocabulary during a build.

Onwards....and upwards!

2011-08-25T13:06:00.000-07:00

This floorspace represents the playroom and kitchen/family room. The door you can see used to divide the kitchen and utility room until the utility room was obliterated.

Foundations

2011-08-25T13:01:00.000-07:00

At least we came home to quite significant progress on the house. August 20th - garage demolished, foundations and damp proof course visible - the blue plastic sheet is the damp proofing. Note the makeshift plumbing hastily cobbled together to allow us to drain the kitchen sink - similar drains soon emerged from every hole in the house and ran directly into the open manhole. Going to the toilet involved quite entertaining sound effects.

Unwelcome Home

2011-08-25T12:51:00.000-07:00

This is our new home. Oh yes, we have a new home - it's news to me as well. We've been away in Cornwall for a fortnight, during which time the builders set to work on our house and managed some quite magnificent breakdown in communication which led the man with the digger to think we'd moved out. And if we've moved out, we don't need drains, right? We don't need gas or toilets that you can flush or sinks you can drain.

Home from Cornwall without a clue about the plumbing, our six year old flushed the toilet and the colour drained from my face. An hour later we had the keys to the builder's empty bungalow (and I do mean empty - no curtains even) and 21 hours later we'd moved house on the back of two tipper trucks. The sight of the Clampits leaving town set curtains twitching up and down the road.

Gin was taken quite soon after.

Head Spin

2011-07-28T11:29:00.000-07:00

Today was our final day of serious productivity before the school holidays, so we were out early changing our minds (again) about the bifold doors and going for the chunkier version than the one I'd chosen yesterday. Thankfully, the lovely Sandra at BAS has copious amounts of patience and clearly recognises a flibberty jibbert when she sees one. Anyway, they are now properly ordered and so are the sliding doors for the living room and I just can't wait to have a good fold and/or slide of them (you know, like when you buy a new washing machine and sit on the floor watching it wash your clothes - or is that just me?).

By half ten we'd made it into Liverpool after a couple of wrong turns and arrived at 'Built in Appliances' in Anfield. We used this shop last time we built an extension - it has the most amazing collection of appliances I've ever seen but can also bring on an option-induced headache within forty minutes. I honestly think they ought to offer a coffee machine and a dark room to have a lie down in because when you go there intending to kit out an entire kitchen, you soon realise that you probably ought to go out looking for one or two appliances at a time. Choice is one thing but choosing between 50 different cookers is no picnic at all.

Our kitchen designer has costed for appliances and advised us to go into the showroom to have a fiddle with them. This was good advice because you've no idea how ergonomic something is until you actually try to use it (and for the record, Smeg hobs have flimsy knobs, which shall henceforth be my mantra in life). Aside from this, you learn from your previous mistakes, which means I'm never having a range cooker again (too old to bend down) and nor am I having a stainless steel hob (too eagle-eyed not to notice the scratches) or an oven you need to clean with Mr Muscle spray, which makes my eyes run.

In the end we've gone for a combination of Siemens ovens (the holiday flat we rent in Cornwall has the same ones and they're an absolute joy) and reluctantly stuck with the Hotpoint fridge, which is cheap but will go wrong within a fortnight. Dr B had to be dragged screaming and kicking from a Miele gas hob, which I'll admit was a thing of beauty but carried a price tag to match and even Dr B's getting tired of pounding the corridors of the local private hospital to fund this renovation. Oh and then there was the chilled beer dispenser, which attaches to a keg and provides you with a cold beer 'within 5 minutes of being fitted' according to the label, which did make me laugh when I imagined some poor kitchen fitter trying desperately to plumb it in while Joe Bloggs has all his mates round, pint glass at the ready. Anyway, we're not having one of those, or at least if we are then I'm having a steam oven and a built in coffee maker as well and that's not going to happen in a month of Sundays.

By lunchtime we were practically dying over the Franke sinks and the Grohe mixer taps and escaped over to Chester via the Mersey tunnel, which is always something of an ordeal because I'm not fond of bodies of water and think if God had intended us to be travelling beneath them then he'd have fitted us with an oxygen tank. Lunch was in order, Dr B spotting a lovely tiled floor in 'The Chimneys' pub on the A41 and taking pictures of it on his i-phone, at which point I realised we've become a bit consumed by project managing this house and probably ought to take my friend Lisa's advice to 'get out a bit more.'

After lunch it was off to Rossett Tiles for a stroke of their Winchester Tiles collection (hand glazed apparently, though judging by the price tag of £109 per square metre I'm expecting they were also hand-carved by the children of celebrities on the back of the Al Fayed yacht). The ones you can see in the picture are the 'half tiles' in 'truffle' and 'blackberry', which are causing some disagreement between myself and Dr B because I think we ought to have them in the truffle or both colours and Dr B think we should go for the blackberry alone. We showed the picture to his mother, who pulled a face and suggested we'd get sick of the red ones before too long and now I'm wondering if she's got a point - we're trying to avoid too much 'neutral' which is hard in a world where we've become accustomed to painting everything in 'natural wicker' or 'bloody calico.'

So the jury's out on the tiles, though thankfully we don't need too many of them otherwise they'd have gone totally off the radar by now. Like the Miele gas hob, they truly are objects of beauty.

Clearing out

2011-07-27T12:44:00.000-07:00

Flaming Nora, we've been busy today. With the school holidays approaching, the need to tie up loose ends looms large - the builders arrive on August 8th to demolish the garage, a garage that's been crammed full of 'stuff' since the end of January. Yesterday we hired a storage unit and a van and began moving the said 'stuff' - avoiding the spiders where possible. This evening the garage is empty and the fun can really start. We've also taken a van load of rubbish to the tip - see photo - so it was goodbye blue toilet for us.

As if that wasn't enough, we had a tree surgeon here all morning shaping the copper beech at the end of our drive. There are rules about clearance above pavements and roads (I think it's about five metres) and our tree had been flouting the rules for decades by the look of it. The council tree expert advised us to have it shaped before the builders arrive to avoid it being dragged along by the lorries on the driveway. Judging by how the bin truck's been dragging it every Wednesday morning, I'd have said there wasn't much more harm we could have been accused of.

While he was busy climbing the tree, I was busy painting the back of the cubby house. The weather's been terrible just recently and we've been too tired to set to work after the kids have gone to bed so as I have some time off work this week I managed to get round to it and put the un-used Cuprinol into the storage unit for good measure. Project cubby house is now offically complete for 2011.

This afternoon we dismantled the huge wardrobes in the master bedroom. Wasn't really expecting the brown shag pile carpet that greeted us underneath - mind you I wasn't expecting three pairs of ladies tights and an assortment of funeral hats either, but that's house renovation for you. Our clothes have now been either packed away for the attic or else precariously balanced on these useless hanging rails we bought on Ebay - they fall over if you walk past them.

And then I ordered the bifold doors and the kitchen. Now that's the beginning of all the fun, isn't it?

More new windows

2011-07-22T04:15:00.000-07:00

D-day minus 17 and the kids have one more week left in school. I say kids, I mean one of the kids - the other one is too young for school and far prefers to spend her time hanging from my leg and howling 'drink!'

The structural engineer's report is back. We had a meeting with our builder on Monday evening, who turned a shade of pale when he saw the amount of steel that's been recommended for the roof. All I could think was that I'd never get a sodding mobile phone reception again once that lot goes in.

Of course, these things are never straighforward - the engineer has forgotten we're having bi-fold doors, so now he's had to revise his drawing and a new (and ambiguous) recommendation has arrived in the post just as were were about to order the doors - it's not that we can't order them, it's just we're no longer clear what size they will be - another thing to check out when we get a minute.

Today we have two windows being fitted - the living room and bedroom 2. Bedroom 2 had to be fitted now because there will be a single storey extension underneath it, which we rightly assumed would make the eventual task of replacing the window much more difficult. The living room window had to be replaced because we can't ventilate the room without opening the sliding doors, which not only provide a convenient escape route for our toddler but also strike me as decidedly dodgy and probably have 15 more slides left in them until they die completely. Needless to say, we're about to order new ones.

I wouldn't recommend having workmen in your house when your toddler's at home because the two just don't mix. Your toddler's sole purpose in life is to find new and exciting ways to kill themselves, the workmen's main purpose is to leave as many hazardous tools lying on the floor and never to close the front door behind them, not even when they're working in the attic. As you can probably imagine, I was kicking myself for having arranged for the windows to be replaced on a Friday and kicking myself even harder when I remembered that I'd forgotten to get the travel cot down from the attic and that the morning nap would have to be delayed until the window in Alex's room was fully installed.

The window guys weren't too happy about climbing over the stairgate. I wasn't too happy about the stanley knife they left on the telephone table in the hall.

'Can't you just put her in there?' they asked, nodding towards the playroom. 'You could put this stairgate across the door and she couldn't get out.'

'She's feisty' I replied. 'She wouldn't appreciate being locked in a room for the next four hours. Neither would I.'

Next time, we'll be prepared.

New Front Door

2011-07-10T12:51:00.000-07:00

Before and after - ta-dah! Now for the glass panels - have emailed a stained glass man in Manchester - let's see what he comes up with.

Setting the Date

2011-07-08T04:07:00.000-07:00

Planning officer turned up this morning. He was probably hoping we'd be out, judging by the sheepish look on his face - not quite the same look he'd had when striding round the back garden talking about refusing our plans. Anyway, he had the brick and tile sample he'd requested - we took them into the planning department earlier this week. They're ok, he says. 'Let the fun begin.'

A few developments to report this week. Firstly, the front door that arrived last week is being glazed and hung as I type. You might think that's a good thing, but it's solid untreated oak and we managed to stain the wrong side, so the joiner's hanging the door in the pouring rain and the un-treated surface is about to cop it. 'You can stain the other side when I've gone,' he suggested - quite oblivious to the fact that I'm in sole charge of a two year old chimpanzee and the chances of me making leisurely brush strokes all afternoon are absolutely zero.

The builder's been in touch - he's coming on August 8th, which is a bit earlier than we thought but means we might be finished by Christmas and enjoying our turkey in the new dining room rather than from a camping chair. He's also offered to rent us one of his properties on a short-term let if we pay the bills and mow the lawn, though quite how we'll get that heavy lawnmower out of the build remains a mystery. We rang the council - they said we can suspend our council tax bill once the renovation begins - transfer the bill to the rental property. Not a bad idea. We'll have to take some furniture, but it's do-able. Anything's do-able, and anything's better than washing up in the bath for weeks on end - fond memories of our last project springing to mind.

The only other thing we've done this week is chosen a colour for bi-fold doors. We've had the aluminium door company out quoting for sliders, folders, windows and a glass canopy for the patio. Now that's exciting.

Coloured Cubby

2011-07-04T08:12:00.000-07:00

Dr B took our eldest camping at the weekend. It was a 'dads and kids' thing. The youngest is too young to go, so I spent a whole weekend with her. If you've ever owned a two year old, you might remember this as some sort of torture (we managed a whole hour at Chester Zoo before I gave up and went home). Still, with nobody else to entertain/cook for/pick shoes up, I had two free evenings - this is the result.

Eldest returned home on Sunday afternoon.

'Did you notice I painted your cottage?'

'It's green. I wanted it blue.'

Distraction

2011-06-25T12:10:00.000-07:00

Another week's gone by and nothing much has happened that you'd notice, though the impending demolition site is freaking me out so I've taken to fussing over the cubby house - it's even got a carpet inside now - there's only the shade of paint left to decide on.

We've commissioned a structural engineer (another £795 since you ask). We know from bitter experience that knocking out supporting walls requires a structural report (we didn't know that last time and were asked for one by the man from Building Control halfway through the project). The report tells you how much steel to use and where to put it.

We've also chosen a builder - he starts in August -and the kitchen company have more or less finalised our design, which wasn't what we originally had in mind when we visted Wickes and Benchmarx, but I guess that's why you go to a proper kitchen designer - so he can rip the Wickes design to shreds and come up with something much better. The kitchen will be oak, painted in a Farrow and Ball grey and featuring a big granite-topped island for cooking and sitting at. That's as much as I can remember.

And then there's the front door, which is still locked closed and has produced much belly aching and hand wringing until we finally came up with the goods. The problem is, I like 1930's houses - you know, leaded glass doors, mosiac tiled floors. This 1960's house just can't take the sort of doors and floors I've always hankered after so we've had to find a compromise, though we weren't expecting to make those sorts of decisions just yet. The new door arrives by courier on Monday, which is far sooner than the company advertised and due in no small part to my pleading down the telephone that I couldn't get out of the door. For all I know, the door company think I'm actually locked in the house. Anyway, the new door is solid oak - contemporary in design but with clear glass rather than that opaque stuff they insist on fitting to the engineered wood versions - finding a door with clear glass was the main cause of the belly aching all week.

The door is due to be flanked by leaded glass side panels at a later date - possibly with a tiny bit of stained blue glass depending on how maverick I'm feeling on the day. I know it's not a 1930's house but there's nothing wrong with a bit of good taste, is there?

Locked Out

2011-06-17T13:53:00.000-07:00

Despite not knowing the men with the cubby house were turning up, I'm glad they did because they were still hammering it together when I left to collect Ella from school. Thinking I'd better tell them where I was going, I left by the back door and took the back door key, something I don't usually do.

Anyway, when we got back, I couldn't get in the front door - the key was spinning in the barrel, kids in the car, cubby house men on the front lawn waiting for their payment. Thank god for that back door key. I had a locksmith out within half an hour, who charged me £20 to tell me it was 'buggered' and I'd need a whole new door.

Dr B's away watching the test match in Southampton. I phoned him - he'd been drinking with his mates.

'How's your day?'

'The men turned up with the cubby house and wanted cash on delivery but I didn't know it was being delivered. The front door is 'buggered' - can't get the key in. Locksmith just left. Tomorrow is Alex's birthday and I haven't even written her card. Ella wants to go to dance class but I'm too stressed out to take her. Since you ask.'

'Only two hours play here. Rained most of the afternoon.'

Project Cubby House

2011-06-17T13:17:00.000-07:00

I wouldn't say Dr B is one for DIY, especially not 'outside' DIY involving sharp sand and other really boring products that come in polythene bags. I was desperate for a wooden playhouse in the last house (yes, me, not the kids) but I knew we'd be moving on and didn't want the hassle of taking it apart so it's waited until now. We had a huge corner of the garden hidden behind a crab apple tree that had seen better days, so Dr B lopped the tree and cleared the bushes and...called his brother.

The patio took them three days to construct and was formed partly from flags donated by my friend Jo, who was ripping hers up. In return I'm donating our old plastic playhouse for her son - perfect example of freecycling, I'd say.

The playhouse arrived today - we bought it on e-bay but couldn't pin the seller down to confirm delivery so I was a bit taken aback when it arrived this afternoon and even more taken aback when they expected cash on delivery, which they didn't get. The girls seem to like it. And I see a perfect getaway from the builders.

Brick Matching

2011-06-16T05:16:00.000-07:00

So the planning permission was granted. Of course, these things are never as simple as they sound and planning permission rarely comes without conditions attached; you must start the project within three years, you can't add any windows at the side - that sort of thing.

In our case, there's a condition about the bricks. We can't start the project until the planning officer is satisfied with the brick match for the front elevations, which presumably means we have to go into the planning office and show him the actual bricks we'll be using. We could always recycle the ones from the garage - there's enough of them - but the cleaning and removing of mortar will cost more than it would cost to source new ones.

I was home today when the brick matching man came to look at the house. He'd been sent by Carl the builder, who was sitting at our table last night firming up the finer details before we decided to commission him. We e-mailed him to offer the contract this morning and within two hours he had the brick man round. The brick man's called Aiden and he spents his life identifying the differences between buffs and greys, reds and browns. In our case, it's a purple.

'They're a bugger to match,' he comments. 'Give me an older house any day - anything less than fifty years old and the bricks will be discontinued. In your case you have one choice - I'll bring you a smple board and hopefully you'll like them.'

'One choice. Is that an actual choice?'

'Well, you know what I mean.'

Elevations - The Rear

2011-06-13T05:04:00.001-07:00

And then there's the back. Yes, it's WIDE isn't it? That was the first thing I said to the architect when he drew the plans, but the house at the back can't see it and I've got used to it now.

You'll notice the side extension is slightly lower at roof height - this is purely to satisfy the planners, as you know. Of course they wanted us to abandon the side extension and build across the back.

The floor to ceiling windows will actually be bi-fold doors (we think). The far left hand window is a playroom off the family room.

We were mulling the plans over last night and I noticed we won't be able to ventilate this room if it's raining - velux windows and bi-fold doors offering no shelter from the rain at all. there's a sliding patio door round the corner that you can't see on the plans - same problem.

Haven't found solution yet but we will.

Elevation - The front

2011-06-13T04:55:00.000-07:00

Now we have planning permission, I can show you how the house is going to look. The huge amount of potential space for a side extension is probably now apparent - imagine if we'd built to the planner's suggestion of knocking down the porch instead....

From the front you'll notice the cedar wood cladding removed and replaced with smooth render. The windows are replaced, the garage is demolished and rebuilt as a longer and wider structure with that highly contentious first floor extension jutting out by a metre above it (the two windows there are bathrooms). The porch is re-glazed and has a new pitched roof and oak door. There's also only one chimney stack where currently there are two.

The garage door won't look like that - it will be smooth and operated by remote control - have glorious visions of self driving into it during snowstorms and entering house through the utility room, where muddy boots can be deposited...

Our Kitchens

2011-06-11T00:45:00.000-07:00

I've probably never shown you the difference between the house we left and the house we bought. The kitchen illustrates our pain. We built that kitchen ourselves, so we know we can do it again, but like the damp-proofing, I've largely forgotten the pain.

Our lovely fridge wouldn't fit into the new kitchen so it's been relegated to the garage. The beer fridge from the garage is now standing in pride of place in the kitchen. That's not the law of nature is it?

I don't know how old that dishwasher is but we also inherited the manual, which depicted a lady with a bee-hive hairdo displaying her finest earthenware goods. They apparently only used it at Christmas, which means it saw 11 years use in the first fortnight we were in the house. After that it died and we got a new one from e-bay for £6. The new one belonged to a Chinese bloke who was emigrating to Australia. He'd managed to melt the side of the dishwasher on his cooker until it looked like Freddie Kruger's favorite kitchen appliance. That's why it was £6.

Our loss is Australia's gain.

Aerial View

2011-06-11T00:42:00.000-07:00

This is how we currently channel our TV pictures - it's an attractive feature of the windowledge in the main bedroom. I think Noah built it with the left over wiring from his ark. The original owner of our house was an engineer - we find his stamp all over the place.

Damp Proofed

2011-06-11T00:31:00.000-07:00

I neglected to mention our damp-proofing, probably because it happened four days after we moved into the house and I didn't have an internet connection, let alone a blog.

On reflection, it wasn't the wisest move when you've just moved house. Damp proofing is a messy job - we'd done it in our old house 13 years previously but 13 years is long enough to numb the pain. This is the 'dining room' by the way. We don't use it as a dining room, we eat in a corner of the sitting room because the kids have colonised it. One day soon it will be a study, and a dry one at that.

On reflection, it

New Loo

2011-06-11T00:14:00.000-07:00

Our friend Steven refurbished the downstairs loo while we were away on holiday. You can probably make out the new water connection in the first photograph - £795 thank you very much - and the water meter disappeared into the garage.

At last - one room is finished - gorgeous isn't it? He's done a brilliant job and I could happily lock myself in there now and pretend the rest of the house wasn't happening. There's a slight problem with the cistern, which isn't attached to the wall and is still wobbling 12 hours later. Apparently these new toilets don't sit flush to the wall - all the Europeans are doing it, which presumably means they're all balanced precariously on the edge of their seats. Anyway, we're not European - we're British, and we Brits require more stable toilet arrangements than your averge Italian, so we'll have to find a solution. Until then, I'm not sitting on it.

As an added bonus, I notice the council has replaced the street lights while we've been away, which is ironic since I jokingly mentioned them to the planning officer as he was leaving last Thursday and asked whether the council might ever consider replacing them. The old one shone into our bedroom, the new one shines down onto the pavement, which is far more useful. I'm certain he had nothing to do with it - but it's the cherry on the cake.

The Longest Week

2011-06-10T12:36:00.001-07:00

I knew that our project would have its ups and downs, but the last week has been unbelievable.

It began last Wednesday. We were a week away from a decision on our planning permission and we still hadn't had a site visit from the officer in charge. Dr B telephoned the planning department to explain we were about to go away on holiday and would be away during the decision date and enquired whether they might like to come and have a look while we were still available to let them into the house.

The planning officer said he'd probably come out with the council tree officer. Dr B referred to the tree survey - the officer admitted he'd never read it. You heard that right - he'd never read it. He'd set the project back 8 weeks, he'd consulted our neighbours about its contents but he'd never actually read it himself.

I could have cheerfully wrung his neck, but mindful of the need to 'keep him sweet', we arranged for him to come and have a look on Thursday morning - which was bad timing as Ella had a friend over to play for the morning, which meant I had to bribe them with chocolate to keep them quiet.

So the officer turns up with his tree man. I asked him why he'd brought the tree officer and he said he didn't always believe what was written in tree surveys. By now, my blood was boiling but I was still managing to smile and keep my hands from around his neck. He stood in the back garden with his clipboard and pointed out all of the other things we could have done rather than extend over the garage, which is odd when you see the amount of space over the garage just dying for an extension and the space across the back of the house that we really don't need to enlarge.

The tree officer advised that the trees were no problem - but we already knew that. The planning officer climbed onto the coal bunker to look at the neighbour's garden, which wasn't quite as close to our house as he'd previously thought - the neighbour's house being slightly higher up than ours, which he'd failed to appreciate despite us telling him on the phone. And then he came into the house.

Now bear in mind, this guy is employed to interpret plans - we're standing at the window of bedroom 3 and I'm showing him the view over the house backing onto our western boundary - the house you can't actually see because of the trees but who's owner has objected to our plans on the grounds we might be overlooking him. And this planning officer is continuing to tell me what else we might do once he's refused the planning permission (which I've pinned him down on - yes, he's going to refuse it) and yet despite this, he insists he's standing in bedroom 2 and he argues the toss quite vehemently until I'm forced to virtually drag him onto the landing and show him he's wrong, at which point he concedes he's mistaken.

And this goes on for quite some time, with him waxing lyrical about how we could knock down our porch and create a useless bedroom on the front lawn. Anything rather than extend over the garage. I gave up in the end. 'We'll have to beg to differ,' I said. 'We'll run with these plans - you can refuse them - we'll appeal.'

'An appeal takes eight weeks,' he says. 'If you just amend the plans as I'm suggesting, it will be much quicker.'

'But I don't like your suggestions. They are nothing like the plans we submitted. And anyway, a resubmission will take another 8 weeks so we might as well go for what we really want.'

'I could rush your plans through,' he says. 'It shouldn't be the way, but it's a case of he who shouts loudest. And I've never lost a case at appeal.'

Now this is odd, because I'm pretty sure our architect has told us that he was locked in a planning appeal with this particular planning officer not so long ago, and the appeal was allowed. I'm also lost for words that he's being so unprofessional as to trot out 'he who shouts loudest' to a punter. And what with him admitting not having read the tree survey, (which was never made available to view with our plans, as it ought to have been) and not believing tree surveys anyway, I'm starting to build quite a portfolio against the way this case has been handled.

'We'll go to appeal.'

'Well perhaps you can build over the garage afterall,' he says. The council don't like appeals - they cost time and money to administer and they are supposed to explore every other avenue rather than allow things to get that far. They are supposed to offer amendments to your plans - which is what this man thinks he's doing.

'So we can build the width and the height?'

'Yes but you need to set it back from the front elevation.'

'If we do that, we can't fit the bathrooms in.'

'I'll refuse it if you don't set it back.'

'On what grounds?'

'It would be detrimental to the street scene and to the original dwelling.

Now at this point I'm laughing because the existing house is so ugly that there's nothing you could do that would make it look any worse. And the neighbouring houses are set forward in the same way, which I point out, but he says is irrelevant because they haven't been extended.

'Ring me on Monday,' he says as he leaves. I rang a local councillor instead. I drove around the estate taking photographs of similar extensions and photographs of our 'street scene' and emailed them to myself for safe keeping. And then we went to Center Parcs.

Now I don't know whether you've been to Center Parcs at Longleat, but it's very hilly and very woody and as you can imagine, there's no mobile phone signal. Fortunately there's Wi-Fi internet connection and luckier still, we'd taken a laptop, so I was able to communicate with this councillor and our architect via e-mail, which I did every night for a week.

The councillor listened to our woes and asked for a resume of events over the last 16 weeks (planning permission taking 8 weeks, as you know). I supplied the resume. I also emailed the planning officer and his manager, the head of planning, attaching relevant photographs and arguing the case for our planning permission being allowed.

The head of planning emailed the councillor. The councillor asked for the decision to be suspended pending some sort of investigation, or else that the application be 'called in' and presented before the committee, at which I would have to present the case myself. The architect was steadfast - we were set for an appeal.

The decision date came and went. We continued to play mini-bowling and slide down the rapids and pretend all was well but my stress levels were through the roof. The planning officer still hadn't written his report and therefore hadn't made a recommendation. He'd read my email but it hadn't changed his views - he still planned to refuse it, but the head of planning was on leave and he'd been told to hang fire. Two more days went by.

We drove home from Center Parcs three days after the decision had been due, cheking our emails all along the motorway, chewing lips, wondering what was happening. Half an hour after we arrived, we received an email from the head of planning. They were approving our plans. They didn't like them but they would approve them.

Victory. Onwards!

Spores

2011-05-31T07:41:00.000-07:00

Goodness, I'm fed up today. With our planning decision due next Tuesday we phoned our architect-type, who thought the due date was a whole week later that it is. The planning officer still hasn't been out to inspect the site and with the decision only a week away, we're off on holiday this Friday so bang goes his chance of gaining access to the rear of the property to take a look.

'I've emailed the planning officer but he hasn't replied' says architect-type. 'And I've e-mailed his wife to see if he's actually in work this week.'

We rang the planning department ourselves, who confirmed that the decision is indeed June 7th and that our planning officer is indeed on annual leave. Perhaps it's a good sign - perhaps he's not bothered about taking a look - though it would be useful if he did because our complaining neighbour's house is hidden entirely by the newly-blossomed trees and can no longer be seen at all - so much for invading his privacy.

One of the quoting builders made an appointment to see us last night, which was a bank holiday. It was his thrid visit and he came armed with a quote for which he'd consulted a professional estimating service at a personal cost of £150. We really like this builder and he comes on personal recommendation, but his professional estimate puts him £60,000 above the cost of other builders tendering for the work and we simply can't afford to use him. Now Dr B feels guilty about him spending £150 on the estimate and thinks we ought to pay him or at least offer to meet him halfway, which I'm sure he'd accept but I'm not sure is the right thing to do in the circumstances. £150 is £150 - we never said he had the job and he never said we had to pay for the quote.

Anyway, in my frustration at all this waiting, I've started peeling at the manky wallpaper in the downstairs loo - it's full of disgusting spores as you can see. This time next week, it'll be gone. At least something is moving.

Springing

2011-05-26T03:21:00.001-07:00

Four months after we arrived, spring's almost finished and we're beginning to see the garden unfold. The lawn's looking a bit greener since we had it scarified, though it's still patchy and I've spent hours removing the weeds by hand.

Last Friday we had Peter the gardener around for a chat. Peter's been looking after this garden for some time, so he knows its history. Apparently that path led to a bird table which eventually became unsafe and had to be removed. To the left of the path was a huge flower bed filled with roses but completely over-run with weeds and grasses which was eventually filled in with turf. The trees at the back are a laburnham and a crab apple tree, though you can hardly make the apple tree out for that massive gum tree behind it. The apple has just finished blossoming. You can't eat crab apples, only make chutneys and sauces with them, which is a shame (why plant a crab apple tree? plant an apple tree!).

We've got to wait for the hedges to finish flowering then he'll come back and shape them all for us (we tried it ourselves but couldn't reach the top - no idea how Peter will reach and he's not giving anything away when we ask - extending trousers perhaps). The grass to the right of the path will be removed and turned into a barked children's play area for the dreaded trampoline/swing/slide combination. It's hardly what I'd choose for the garden but there's enough garden left so that it won't have too huge an impact and after all, the kids were the reason we wanted this garden. Still in denial about the trampoline though....

Brew Count

2011-05-26T03:12:00.000-07:00

I wonder how many more of these I'll be making over the next 12 months? Our last project involved five builders, who were furnished with several cups of hot tea every day for eight months (not to mention their favourite 'Happy Faces' biscuits, teacakes, baked potatoes, soup, calor gas heater in the winter and cold beer in the summer).

Unfortunately for us they fell out quite spectacularly with our neighbours (who's house they were extending simulataneously) so all the brewing up and provision of toilet facilities fell to us - as did the plugging in of power tools to work on nextdoor's house, such was their reluctance to knock on the door and speak to them. Anyway, it worked in our favour in the end because our hospitality earned us several 'free' jobs including the laying of a patio and the laying of a quarry tiled floor in our hall. There's a lesson in that.

Dig

2011-05-26T03:00:00.001-07:00

After weeks of NOTHING happening to the house and garden, two developments this week, though neither of them particularly rewarding in terms of the finished product.

Today we have Mole Engineering burrowing a hole under the front garden to replace the water pipe that connects us to mains up on the street (if you click on the photographs, they come up bigger). Their work is supposed to be 'trenchless' so I was surprised to see them unloading a spade this morning and that looks suspiciously like two trenches they'd dug. Still, I'm not bothered about the lawn and it's half the price quoted by the (distinctly trenchy) utility company, who still want £60 to come out and inspect that the relocated water meter has been finished to their standards.

Tomorrow my brother-in-law arrives with some tools to start laying hard standing at the top of the garden. The kids are having a playhouse and it's already got a name. I'm secretly plotting gingham curtains.

Water Pipes

2011-05-05T12:33:00.000-07:00

So! The window's been installed - we're ready to confine this aqua bathroom suite to history, right? I mean, how hard can this be?

Another weekend, another builder - though this time it's a builder who's been here before and seems a little un-nerved about the size of the project so he's chosen to return with his electrician and plumber for the purposes of giving a more accurate quote. These hours spent explaining the job to builders is beginning to wear me down. They all need full-scale plans, which have to be ordered from the local printer at additional cost - they all need specification, pencils to chew.

John the Builder's plumber shakes his head when he hears we're replacing the downstairs loo. The water pipe from the street enters the house behind the loo, the pipe's too thin to support the sort of water usage modern families enjoy - it needs to be replaced and it needs doing before we tile the room, especially if we'd like it relocated to the garage.

We phoned the local water company - they'll replace the pipe but they dig up your garden and they charge by the meter, which, given that we've about a squillion metres between our house and the main road - well it's going to cost (about £1500 to be exact). The alternative is Mr Mole. Mr Mole bores a hole under your garden for about £600 and gets the water company to connect him up to the mains. Bingo. Hes coming out tomorrow to inspect the site, though I'm not sure he'll have much luck because moles are blind, as everyone knows.

I'm beginning to think we're saddled with the aqua toilet forever.

Wonga

2011-04-22T14:20:00.000-07:00

Checking my spreadsheet this evening, I plucked up courage to find out what we've spent so far. The answer is £6200. As far as I can see, this has bought us two windows, a fireplace and some nice drawings. Another builder came to price for the job today. 'I hope you've got lots of money' he commented as he studied the plans. I wasn't sure he was right for the job - the flashy range rover isn't quite the 'salt of the earth' image I'd been expecting. Dr B felt the same. It's all very well finding a lower quote, you have to feel you could work with the builder.

Today's was the seventh builder we've had looking at the plans and this one came with some sort of water divining rod to work out where the drains run. It's a time consuming process with much to discuss, though let's face it, since the fiasco over the tree survey we've got time on our hands. Two have sent back quotes, two are pending. The others seem to think it's too big a project for them, though you'd have thought they might call to let you know after all the time it's taken up. The path to a 'finished' home seems very long from where I stand.

Windows. That Open.

2011-04-21T13:13:00.000-07:00

Two new windows yesterday. UPVC, work of the devil. Can't help thinking they're an improvement, all the same. This photo is like a before and after shot. Can't wait to get the downstiars done to match.

Take a Seat

2011-04-18T10:00:00.000-07:00

You mean I didn't show you our downstairs loo? What an omission - surely the jewel in the crown. The suite's by Twyfords and I know it's 'aqua' because the colours are timeless. It's absolutely bombproof and I'm sure some reclamation yard will give us £75 for it because there are people out there who like this sort of thing. That's the water meter sitting on the skirting board. Yes, the picture matches - it's my 'Australia Blues' - made it myself without ever realising it would be the perfect match for a cistern.

And then theres's that wallpaper, which is peeling away to reveal the rotten plaster that needs knocking off, and the 'vacant/engaged' door lock which is so bad it's good. There's no heating in this room so it's freezing cold in winter - those doors have got to go too. All in good time.

It's being done the first week in June.....

Project WC - start here

2011-04-18T09:35:00.000-07:00

We might be waiting for planning permission, but there are some jobs we can be getting on with to avoid doing everything at once. Our next projects are the downstairs loo (aqua suite, rotten spore-ridden plaster and carpet that smells of well, wee) and splitting the master bedroom in half to create two smaller bedrooms. However, none of that can be tackled until we've replaced the affected windows, partly because replacing windows later will damage new tiles but also because one of the new bedrooms would be left without an opening window.

Incredibly, most of the windows to our front elevation are non-opening; huge plates of glass 2.7 metres wide, which I'm sure would break several building regulations and send jobs-worth types spinning. Like sixties cladding, they were once the done thing (our neighbour has the same).

The top picture shows one of the first to be replaced - one window frame spanning two rooms (bottom of the stairs and downstairs loo). You'll be relieved to hear that the right hand panel is obscured glass but I've never seen anything quite like it - the dividing frame disappears into the dividing wall leaving hardly any visible frame wherever you view it from.

And then there's all the hand-wringing and soul searching that goes on trying to decide whether to use UPVC (apparently the work of the devil) or aluminium or wood. Wood is traditional but we've had wooden frames in the past and they require lots of maintenance. In any case, the variations in our brickwork make it hard to decide what colour you'd paint them, which means you'd probably paint them white and from the road they'd look exactly like UPVC anyway.

And then there's aluminium, which is about 25% more expensive and comes in an array of colours, the only one of which I like is the gunmetal grey. This would work beautifully against the rendered parts of the front elevation but wouldn't look quite so right against the brickwork, which kind of counts it out.

We're going for UPVC. Eddie the window man rang this evening to say our first two windows are ready and wanting to know whether he can fit them on Wednesday. The handles are chrome. I'm going to use them with gay abandon...

Full Time Position

2011-04-12T07:33:00.000-07:00

I'm fast coming to the conclusion that renovating a house is a full time job. I've tried this line with Dr B and he's having none of it, since he's got used to my bit of income and he's in no hurry to spend any more of his life in the Bupa Hospital to furnish us with Grohe basin taps. Today he spent 2 hours talking to a man in a kitchen shop - he arrived armed with a design drawn by Wickes (and if you're considering a Wickes kitchen then I hear they're well made but that there's a company called Benchmarx that supply exactly the same for a third of the price). The man in the kitchen shop is lovely, he tells me. His name sounds French but he looks like an Arab, though none of this is relevant because he's never built a laundry chute and though he's love to have a go, he'd be adding £1000 to the price for the experience. You see, kitchens are much more complicated than they look, especially when you 'factor in' the utility room and you realise you need a belfast sink for dirty boots and a tap with a spraying arm for all-round cleaning. And a laundry chute coming directly from the bathroom, of course - though I'm not sure how you stop other things coming from the bathroom into the utility room - you know, like noises. And then there's the appliances and the tricky question of whether they ought all to bear the same brand name. Would I be the laughing stock of the school playground if I mixed Neff with Seimens? Do I play it safe and go for an unbranded island hood? 90cm hob or a metre? Chicken or beef? The kitchen man has nice painted doors and you can choose any colour of Farrow and Ball you like, which I realise isn't the main consideration, but perusing the F and B colour chart is so much more fun than looking at dishwashers. Dr B thinks I'm the sort of girl who chooses a car based on it's colour. I'm not - I choose it based on the colour of the seats. Don't tell him.

Trees, Roots and Planners

2011-04-12T07:27:00.000-07:00

Seven weeks after submitting planning permission, we were due to receive a decision next week. And then, you know, get building - which is handy, since we're living in an electrical deathtrap (okay, I exaggerate) but still - we know the electrics are shonky and we can't re-wire until we rebuild.

Anyway, the planning department have pulled our application saying it was never valid in the first place because it wasn't accompanied by a tree survey. The tree survey adds no new information (well - there are some trees, but they don't affect the build and the build doesn't affect the trees). So we have to begin the planning process all over again. They have to write to the neighbours to tell them 'look! pretty trees!' and the eight weeks shall recommence.

So frustrating. Our architect completed the paperwork and ticked the box indicating 'no trees' on the boundary. He says this is standard practice. I can't help thinking it's put us back two months. Dr B disagrees but then he always sees the positive.

2011-04-06T13:54:00.000-07:00

Continued costs

2011-04-01T05:05:00.000-07:00

Still waiting for planning permission. The process takes 8 weeks and so far it's cost us £1300 for the architect's drawings and planning application. Oh yes and £150 to apply for buildings regulations. Today we have a tree surveyor drawing a sketch of the western boundary of our property, identifying tree types and taking photographs. One of the neighbours has objected to our plans, based party on the fact he has trees on the boundary. The planning department has asked for tree survey so they can work out what we'd need to do to protect said trees. There goes another £250. Still, it's nice to talk to the surveyor and learn what's in the garden - a massive beech tree at the end of the drive, a laburnam and some fruit trees (he's not sure what fruit so we'll wait for summer). Structural engineer has dropped us a line. He wants £750 to tell us where to put the steel in the roof. House continues to bleed money from every brick.

Done and dusty

2011-03-24T14:03:00.001-07:00

Ta-daaaa!

Half a Fireplace

2011-03-16T13:26:00.000-07:00

Arrived home this evening to find Mr Garlick (and everything else) covered in dust - yes, the fireplace man really is called Mr Garlick, which is part of the reason we chose him. We've already had the fireplace swept and now Mr Garlick's removed the old baxi grate and decorative slate heart and replaced them with a cast iron surround and some nice shiny granite. I realise this is a 1960's house, but can't quite resist the nod to our previous 1930's home and have chosen the most simple fireplace design I could find.

Anyway, turned out the old plaster was knackered so he's stripped the lot back and started again, which has the added advantage of showing up all the gas and electricity pipes/wires, some of which have been laid on a diagonal that would make the bloke from buildings regs weep. Tomorrow we say goodbye to those corniches - I hope.

Feature Wall

2011-03-16T13:20:00.000-07:00

What to say about our feature wall? Well first off, it's been stripped of the lovely wallpaper and secondly it's got these tasteful alcoves (the estate agent called them 'display corniches') and what's more, the alcoves are fitted with light bulbs, so you've no excuse for not illuminating your knick-knackery willy nilly.

And then there's the wall lights, original to the house, which is handy since there's no central light fitting in the sitting room. We're truly spolit. Anyway, this is the calm before the storm. All this has got to go.

Scrawl

2011-03-12T05:24:00.000-08:00

There's something marvellously liberating about moving into a wreck. I've been promising Ella we could get some blackboard paint and make a 'solar system' wall display in her bedroom, knowing we'll be painting over it sometime soon. Finally got around to it today and excelled myself by adding that she could take her felt-tipped pens to the walls. The result was weirdly therapeutic.....

Badger's Arse

2011-03-12T05:13:00.001-08:00

This is how the back lawn's looking since Green Thumb did their business with the aeration and scarifiction. They did warn us it would look like a badger's behind.

Curtains

2011-03-12T05:07:00.001-08:00

You know, they're just a pair of curtains but the fact they're the first curtains we've had made for this house means their arrival was exciting. These sixties houses have wonderful huge windows but the downside is being unable to buy ready made curtains - the bedroom windows alone measure 2.7 metres across. Good job we found Linda the curtain lady.

Goodbye dirty candlewick curtains. Hello Laura Ashley 'Bella Butterfly'. Ella still woke before 6am this morning. So much for super-strength blackout lining.....

Leak

2011-03-07T12:39:00.000-08:00

So about three weeks ago I hung a picture on the wall in the living room, and though I didn't link the two, I also began to smell gas behind the television. Dr B said I was imagining it - there were no gas appliances in that part of the house.

The smell continued (and I kept sticking my nose there to check). Nobody else could smell it - I convinced myself they were right. Today the smell was worse so I phoned British Gas. They came within the hour but their leak-o-meter showed nothing up along the skirting board. I was beginning to think I really was imagining it until the nice man told me I'd nailed a pipe and that he was shutting off the gas. 4.30pm on a Monday afternoon with two cold-ridden kids, it's not what you want to hear.

Note to self - always use the wire detector gadget before hanging up pictures. Thankfully we got a gas service engineer round within half an hour and he managed to seal this off. Could have been much worse.

Old (Clean) Patio

2011-03-07T11:48:00.001-08:00

Who'd have thought it was actually red and yellow underneath the dirt?

Muck

2011-03-07T11:45:00.000-08:00

This was the scene on the doorstep during the process of cleaning moss form the roof

New Roof

2011-03-07T11:40:00.000-08:00

We spent two days (and about £800) having moss removed from the lawns and the roof. Here's Lee the roof washer after hours of pressure washing the tiles. I think he underestimated the extent of the job. At least now we know what colour tiles we're matching to, though the lawn's still full of moss as far as we can tell.

Striplight

2011-02-25T12:56:00.000-08:00

This light fitting is my personal favourite. It's in Ella's bedroom, though we've had to dissuade her from using it in case the dust sets off the smoke alarm...

Switch

2011-02-25T12:54:00.000-08:00

It's the little touches that make a house a home.

Ding Dong

2011-02-25T12:47:00.000-08:00

North-facing hall, but the 1960s design means huge windows and plenty of light. Oh and that doorbell. Avon calling.